


If the Seas Catch Fire

by RobinRedR



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Asexual Mikasa Ackerman, Closeted Eren, Coffee Shops, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eren and Carla's relationship is complicated, Eventual Smut, F/F, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Intersex Hanji, LGBTQ Community, Lots of Genders & Sexualities represented, M/M, Nonbinary Hange Zoë, Past Abuse, Slow Build, Trans Marco, Unresolved Sexual Tension, gay-straight alliance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-19 17:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2396711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinRedR/pseuds/RobinRedR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren doesn't really like gay people. Well, and that's putting it lightly. Somehow, Armin convinces – read ‘blackmails’ – him into joining Trost High’s <em>Gay-Straight Alliance</em> in the hopes of altering his chauvinistic attitude. Now enter Levi, who is pretty damn smart and badass and <em>different</em>, and who begins cropping up everywhere like a weed in the neat flowerbed of Eren’s life. He is also, unfortunately for Eren, very very gay. </p><p>Otherwise known as the highschool!AU in which pretty much no one is straight, Hanji runs the experiment of their lifetime, and maybe there is more backstory to Eren’s bigotry than first meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Educational Experiment

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write a fic like this for a long time, [ever since I realized](http://fuckyeahererifanfic.tumblr.com/post/82406257554/hey-dyou-guys-know-any-fics-where-one-or-the-other-is) there weren't many closeted!Ereri fics. Not to mention any openly-homophobic!Ereri fics. 
> 
> I'm well aware this is a delicate subject to treat, and so I hope I do it justice. (Also my knowledge of American GSAs is entirely nonexistent so I'm just yolo-ing my way through this hah.)
> 
> Please don't be put off by Eren's initial dickheadedness, things will slowly evolve.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

 

 

 

> _“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, (and live by love though the stars walk backward).”_ – e.e. cummings

 

“Armin, this is a really terrible idea.”

“No.” The boy tucked a strand of blond hair behind his ear, a smug expression trailing over his typically innocent features. “No, it’s really not.”

They were standing in front of the classroom – Room 104, Eren noted – that had been indicated on the bright pink flyer currently crumpled in Armin’s hand. And Eren, for one, could list about a million other places he would rather be standing at this precise moment in time.

He ran a hand over his face, suppressing a pained groan. “What if they’re all creeps? ‘Min, I can’t _do_ this. You know me.”

Armin sent him a dark look out of the corner of his eyes that made Eren cower slightly; this kid could be rather terrifying once he had set his mind on something. You’d never know it, just by looking at his sparkling blue eyes and baby face, but Armin could be a force of nature sometimes. Not that Eren would ever call his best friend’s eyes _sparkly…_ he wasn’t a damn twink after all.

“How about _you_ stop being a pussy.” And there we had it; the other side to Armin Arlert.

“Armin!” Eren exclaimed, feigning a scandalized expression, but his best friend just laughed.

“Eren, you already agreed to this. Or, as I told you, I’m sending Mikasa those pics of you and Jean—”

“Okay! Okay, fine.” Eren took a deep breath. Two months… he just had to get through the end of November; that’s what the deal had been. Two months of being a member of  Trost High’s _Gay-Straight Alliance,_ which was just a big fancy title for a geeky club for creepy-ass kids, who were all, of course, most definitely _gay._

Just fucking wonderful.

‘Girls, boys, and everything in between!’ the flyer welcomed in an overly garish cursive script, whatever the hell that even meant. Eren hoped they would be mostly lesbians. Then, at least, he wouldn’t have to worry about gay guys checking him out all the time. Lesbians were tolerable; he was Mikasa’s brother after all – (although, until she _actually_ got an official girlfriend he was going to firmly believe she was still one hundred percent straight). And he’d been real tight with Ymir up until she’d come out.

“Eren, we’re going to be late if you just keep standing out here like a lost puppy feeling sorry for yourself. Everyone’s probably already inside.”

He shook himself abruptly out of his daze. “Right. Let’s go.” He felt as if he was going into battle or something, what with the way his body had gone all tight and rigid. Steeling himself, he knocked twice on the door and then pushed it open firmly, before his nerves could fail him. Of course, he mildly underestimated his own strength in the motion, and ended up slamming the door backwards into the wall with a resounding thump that shook the classroom. The entire room fell silent in response to Eren’s (unintentionally) dramatic entrance, while the poor boy’s face burned with acute embarrassment, feeling a dozen pairs of strange eyes locked onto him. Way to be inconspicuous, Jaeger.

“Hellooo~” sang a voice, and Eren had to rapidly step back to avoid colliding noses with the brunette girl who had appeared before him so suddenly. She cupped his cheeks in both hands, amber eyes glinting brightly behind her crooked glasses. “Oh my, aren’t you adorable. Wahoo! New recruits, people, new test subjects!” She laughed manically, stepping away from a stunned Eren.

“Hanji, Hanji… they’re not _test_ subjects,” said a cool male voice from somewhere behind her. Eren caught a glimpse of tall, blond and handsome. Typical. 

“Oh yes, of course, Erwin. New _friends,_ then,” she winked, which did absolutely nothing to reassure Eren, and then clapped her hands together. “Names! Tell me your names!”

Armin stepped out from behind a catatonic Eren, smiling shyly. “Ah, I’m Armin Arlert; this is my friend Eren Jaeger. We’re juniors.”

The woman, ‘Hanji’ apparently, beamed. “Welcome to the club then, Armin Arlert and Eren Jaeger,” she drawled their names with surprisingly accurate pronunciation. “Sorry, I’m just going to have to ask this before someone else does… are you two friends or… _friends?_ ” She crisscrossed her fingers in the air suggestively.

Eren grit his teeth. Okay, it was time he made a few things crystal clear here. “No, we are definitely not like _that,_ ” he said firmly. “Not anything, actually. We’re just… um, supporters.”

Armin shot him a look. “Oh, so you’re a supporter now?"

“ _He’s_ the supporter,” Eren amended with a dark glare “ _I_ was just dragged along.”

He looked around the room then, finally, daring any of the other students to challenge him. As it was, he recognized several of the faces spread out across the desks. There was Ymir, unsurprisingly, in the first row with her arm around a petite blonde girl. Then there was Jean, unfortunately, who was currently eyeing Eren with blatant disbelief. He let out a pained smile in greeting. Jean and he had been frenemies – as dubbed by Sasha – for god knew how many years. They’d never quite seen eye-to-eye, and frequently beat the shit out of each other over the most menial of arguments… but then sometimes Eren would end up at Jean’s house playing video games in an odd camaraderie. It was a weird kind of relationship, but it worked for them.

Speaking of Sasha… she and Connie were there too, for some reason. The two troublemakers had been inseparable best friends for years, supposedly upholding the idea that a boy and a girl could be friends without it leading to anything less platonic. Eren doubted how long that would last. They'd probably end up married or something. 

In the back row there were Reiner, Berthold and Annie… The two boys were seniors and Eren knew them only by name; Annie he’d met in his PE class. She’d completely creamed him in jujitsu last year.  That had been… humiliating, to say the least, considering she was half his size and a girl to boot. But she and Mikasa had hit it off that same year, strangely enough. He never ever saw them so much as speak to each other, but if Mikasa had one friend besides himself and Armin, it was probably Annie.

The other four or five faces there were foreign to him, however. Threat level: high.

“Ah… I see,” Hanji was saying. “Cool beans.” She had deflated somewhat in response to Eren’s cold demeanor, though when he turned to face her again he noticed a mad glint starting to bud in the depths of her amber eyes. He took half a step back. “Well, have a seat. We’ll do introductions then, ‘cause I think no one else is joining us. Too bad!”

“Well actually, Mikasa – my sister – is coming too, but I think she got held up after class…” Eren ventured, scratching the back of his head.

“Mikasa… I know that name… Mikasa Ackerman? The top student at Trost for four years and counting, with that cool-bitch badass face?”

“Uh…”

Hanji giggled, wiggling her eyebrows. “I’m on the Student Council so I know these things. Awesome! We’ll be the biggest group yet this year, I think!”

Eren desperately wished that were not the case. That only meant more annoying people to deal with.

“Tch,” an irritated voice broke suddenly across their conversation. “I have _so_ many things I’d rather be doing than listening to your shit, four-eyes. Please hurry the fuck up so this hour can drag by a little faster.”

Eren followed the sound of that monotonous voice and met probably the most dispassionate expression he’d ever seen on anyone. That took quite some skill. Eren was well acquainted with Mikasa's limited expressionism, but this here was… this was apathy at its _finest._

Eren’s eyes widened fractionally, realizing with a jolt that the man’s deceivingly sharp gaze was casually fixed right on _Eren’s_ face, even though his comment had been clearly directed at Hanji. It unnerved him further when, instead of glancing away like a normal person would have after being caught staring at a complete stranger, the guy just kept on holding Eren’s gaze, unfazed.

He frowned, breaking eye contact. Connie was motioning him over because there was a free seat next to him and Sasha, but Armin held him back before he could escape to the back of the classroom.

“No, let’s make some new friends. Come.”

Eren’s frown deepened. “No no, Armin—” but the boy dragged him determinedly to, fuck no, to the two seats next to that creepy guy who’d been staring at Eren. Armin had apparently become simultaneously blind and deaf to all of Eren’s silent communication. He sighed then, resigning himself to his fate, and slid into his seat as far away from the other guy as possible.

Armin nudged his arm on the other side. “Well go on, introduce yourself.”

Eren glanced warily at the other boy’s profile. He had a straight nose and smooth jaw line, heavy lidded eyes with sooty eyelashes.  He looked… well, different, from anyone Eren had ever seen. And was that eyeliner? _Fucking_ hell.

“I’m Eren,” he said woodenly. Grey eyes flashed his way for a split second, but the guy didn’t turn his head.

“I know. Do I look like I give a shit?”

Eren shrugged and gestured at Armin like ‘well there ya go’. The blond sighed and Eren swore he saw an eye roll there.

“And I’m Armin; it’s nice to meet you. Your name is…?” He was leaning over Eren’s lap, smiling genuinely. The other boy tutted in exasperation, but apparently decided to deign them with his attention. Eren shrank from his piercing gaze.

“Levi.”

Eren was weirded out by the way Levi’s hair seemed to fall over his forehead, so fine that it stayed perfectly parted even when he moved.

“Are you a…” Eren tried to judge his height and age. “Sophomore?”

Armin stifled a snort beside him. “That’s _Levi_ , he’s kind of… well-known, Eren.” Eren stared at him blankly. “…In other circles, perhaps. But he’s definitely a senior.”

“Oh. But…”

Levi was glaring at him. “Don’t even—”

“Okay!” Hanji’s excited babble cut them off, and Eren was awkwardly reminded that the three of them were not alone in the room. “We’re going to start by going around the room and saying our names along with some little fact that sets us apart. No ‘my favorite color is—’ or I will kick you out. Of course, you’re welcome to mention your sexuality too, or the gender pronouns you’d prefer, but remember: this room is a safe zone, and if you don’t want any labels, that’s perfectly alright. This goes for everyone; make no assumptions about a person’s gender or sexuality here. We deal with that enough as it is in the outside world.”

Eren eyed her suspiciously. None of what she’d just said made remotely any sense to him whatsoever. And he, being Eren, couldn’t just hold his tongue about it.

“I’m sorry but… everyone in this room except for the two of us,” he indicated Armin and himself, “and Sasha and Connie are obviously gay. Like, why the fuck would you be here if you weren’t?”

There was an awkward silence.

“Why the fuck are _you_ here, is the question I’ve been burning to ask,” snapped Jean’s voice from somewhere behind him.

Eren scowled. “I’m not—”

“Armin, please tell me this wasn’t _your_ idea, or my esteem of your mental capabilities will severely fall. You know Jaeger is incorrigible.”

“Don’t fucking insult my friends, horseface!” Eren bristled, making as if to stand up.

“Hey, hey, hey! What did I just say about this being a safe zone?” Hanji cut in, looking put out. No one seemed to hear her, as tension crackled through the air.

“Well, _he’s_ a fag.”

“And _he’s_ a homophobic _bitch._ ”

“E _nough!_ ,” snarled Levi from beside him as he stood up abruptly enough to make his chair screech against the floor, and Eren immediately recoiled from the seething anger he could feel rolling off the other student, his muscles knotted and eyes like chipped ice. Eren suddenly wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “ _This_ is not going to be tolerated here, you flaming pile of dog shit. I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing here, but it’s time someone made one thing clear: You will respect your fellow club members if you want anyone to give a shit about you in turn.”

Eren swallowed, shrugging up one shoulder defensively.

“I just fail to see the point of Hanji’s speech, is all,” he couldn’t help but say.

Levi eyed him for a tense moment, and then crossed his arms over his chest, a dark glint in his gaze. “Where were you born, brat?”

 _What did this have to do with anything?_ “Uh… Frankfurt…?”

“And your mother is…”

“German? And Turkish?” Eren frowned up at him as Levi slowly began to pace in front of his desk.

“And your father…”

“What the hell is this, twenty questions? What—”

Levi didn’t give him a chance to finish. “Yet you’ve lived most of your life in…”

“Shiganshina and now Trost, but what--”

“So when someone asks you ‘where are you from’, what do you answer?”

Eren stared. There would probably be a point to this whole conversation, eventually. “Without going into detail; ‘it’s complicated’.”

Levi stepped around the desk to face Eren with a humorless quirk to his lip. “Well, there you have it.”

Eren sent a helpless look in Armin’s direction, but the blond was gazing wide-eyed at Levi. Great.

“I don’t get it.”

Levi sighed imperceptibly, and Eren was distracted by the subtle swaying of his black hair. “Your nationality is one part of your identity. Your gender and sexuality make up two other parts. And all can be equally as ‘complicated’. With me so far?”

“I guess...” Eren tugged at the hem of his shirt.

“There’s no such thing as simply ‘gay’ or ‘straight’, despite the fucking misleading name of our club. There’s a whole goddamn rainbow of variation between the two, if you’ll pardon that terrible cliché. The same is true for gender, if you can wrap your shitty little head around that. The world isn’t just divided into ‘male’ and ‘female’ either.” Levi tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned against the desk, a pose way too casual to mask the simmering anger that burned in his gaze. “ _That_ is what Hanji is talking about.”

There were some things Eren could pretend to understand, like Calculus or the entire content of his History textbook, but this was just too much.

“Okay wait, what the fuck; if you’ve got boobs, you’re a girl, and if you’ve got a dick, you’re a guy. There’s nowhere you can go wrong with that.”

Levi just smirked. “And then there’s Hanji, who’s got a bit of both.”

The said Hanji beamed at them when Eren turned to stare uncomprehendingly.

Levi set a hand on the edge of Eren’s chair and leaned down. His cologne smelt oddly like cinnamon, or something exotic. “Now then, you were asking why people come here?”

Eren wasn’t, not really, but he nodded anyway, trying to inch away surreptitiously.

“Some of us come because we are well-rooted into our sexualities and are not afraid to flaunt it, that’s true. But many come because they are questioning,” he started ticking things off on his fingers, long fingers like a pianist’s hands with perfectly manicured nails, “because they’re not ready to come out yet but want the support, because they have trouble at home or with peers, because they’re looking for a relationship, because they were _forced by their goddamn friends to join a club they didn’t want to,_ ” here, he glared at Hanji, “or simply to offer support to the community.”

Sasha and Connie waved at Eren from the back of the room.

“But either way,” Levi continued, “there is no room in here for your shitty intolerance. So take the stick out of your ass and open your fucked up little mind a bit, why don’t you.” Eren swallowed. “The only reason I haven’t kicked you out yet is because one of our mottos is, after all, ‘end homophobia’, and there’s no harm in starting small.”

 _Small,_ Eren thought with half-hearted amusement, but he was too thrown off his game to be able to make fun of his terrifying new classmate, even within the safety of his own mind.

“Are we clear?”

Eren chanced another look at Armin, but his best friend still looked shell-shocked with admiration.

“Are we _clear?_ ” hissed Levi, slamming his hands down on the desk in front of Eren.

“Yes sir!” It slipped out before Eren could hold it back, stiff in his chair and feeling like a cat that had just been chased up a tree by a wolf. Levi ‘tch’ed and straightened up again smoothly. Slowly, the venom began to fade from his sharp gaze.

There was a resounding silence that permeated the room, and Eren was uncomfortably aware of every single pair of eyes fixed on the two of them. Then, someone started clapping.

“ _Le_ vi! I never knew you had all that in you, oh my.” Hanji looked far too ecstatic than the situation warranted, in Eren’s honest opinion, but he’d come to realize that was just Hanji’s way. “Congratulations Eren, you pissed him off so much he got all the way off his high horse just to kick you into the dirt!” He assumed that was not intended as the insult Eren perceived it as. “Wow, what a passionate start to the year.”

If Eren didn’t know any better, he could’ve sworn that was an embarrassed flush on Levi’s cheeks.

“I fucking hate you, four-eyes.”

Hanji laughed genially. “And thank you, Levi, for kindly offering to take custody of Eren during this experiment – I mean, educational… uh… ” She shrugged. “I’m sure you’re the best match for him,” and she even had the audacity to _wink._

“Excuse me?” Levi growled.

“Just, you know, show him the ropes, keep him in line…”

Eren really wished they would stop talking about him as if he weren’t there. “I don’t need any of that, thank you. I have Armin,” Eren replied curtly. He thought he heard Jean snort behind him at that. Eren had the distinct feeling that he was missing something here as Hanji and Levi exchanged a long look that made the air around them crackle with static, but eventually Levi slumped into his seat, crossing one leg over the other in apparent defeat.

Hanji grinned widely and clapped her hands together again.

“Say, let’s get down to these introductions, yeah?”

Eren licked his lips, blessed relief curling through him when he realized he was finally out of the line of fire. He had no idea what to think of all this. That had possibly been the most intense argument he’d ever had, and that was certainly saying something, considering he was friends with Jean.

He was only half-listening as the conversation returned to a more neutral course, too lost in his own thoughts.

“Hanji Zoë: scientist extraordinaire by day, and accomplished Pokémon trainer by night. They/them pronouns please. I also have two dogs named Sawney and Bean who tend to enjoy chewing on human limbs. You’ll probably meet them one day. You next!” She pointed to a girl in the first row.

“Oh… my name is Krista, Krista Lenz. I’m in my junior year.” She hesitated. “I want to be a social worker but my dad wants me to go into business… I uh… also really like horror movies?”

“I’m Ymir. I like pussy. See, Jaeger, there’s no shame in admitting that as long as you’re not a massive dick about it.” She grinned at him, golden eyes winking over the top of Krista’s head, and Eren realized with a jolt how he’d missed her smile. Maybe it was time he rekindled their friendship, despite the whole gay thing.

He took a deep breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth, like his sister had taught him to keep his cool. Armin patted his arm awkwardly in a sign of solidarity, his blue eyes asking silently if Eren was okay.

Yeah, he was okay. Kind of.

He felt a cool grey stare on him multiple times over the rest of the next half hour, the kind of unreadable gaze that lingered on his skin like an itch, burying itself under the surface and settling in Eren’s mind. Like poison ivy, it felt like poison ivy.

He let his head drop back against the plastic edge of his chair, staring at a spot on the ceiling as the laugher and chatter of the others washed over him, and thought wryly to himself that _Armin, this was a really terrible idea. But fuck it all, I’m going to give it a shot anyway._


	2. The Art of Listening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The universe does not take pity on Eren's plight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I'm sorry, I said weekly updates and then whoops, a month and a half happens. Future updates will not be as sporadic as this! 
> 
> **Note:** Some of you had a question about this last chapter so I shall clear this up here. Since this is written in Eren's point of view, the pronouns he uses in his mind won't change until his own perception does too. So he will continue to refer to Hanji using she/her pronouns despite them specifically mentioning their preferences last chapter. Hopefully that will change soon, for all of our sakes...
> 
> Special thanks to my beta [Ymir](http://archiveofourown.org/users/applecascade) for giving me fantastic feedback and getting me to actually post this.

 

 

Where the hell had he put that Biology assignment sheet? Eren could have sworn he’d thrown it in this locker earlier this morning. It also happened, incidentally, to be due in class in about ten minutes, and Ms. Brzenska didn’t exactly tolerate slacking off.

A certain annoying acquaintance of Eren’s appeared over the edge of his locker, snorting like the horse that he was with an exaggerated eye roll. “It’s only the second month of school and your locker already looks like that? Jesus.”

Eren glanced wistfully at the explosion of crumpled papers and half-finished notes that had spilled onto the hallway floor when he’d first opened the metal door.

“Ugh, just piss off, horseface.” The usual venom in his voice was lacking, however. Jean seemed to take that as invitation, because he grinned and leaned against the closed lockers with a fake-casual air.

“So you, huh, _you_ joined the GSA. I’m still not over that. It’s been bothering me all weekend.”

Eren groaned; he should have known this was coming. “Look, it wasn’t my idea, okay? Armin has those photos of us playing strip poker at Reiner’s party last year—”

Jean’s eyes widened comically, and he shot panicked looks to either side of them. “Wait fuck, seriously? You’re kidding? I thought everyone agreed that never happened.”

Eren pulled out a textbook, along with another mini flood of papers. “Armin.”

Jean sighed. “Yeah okay, true. But blackmail or no, you still went along with the idea.” The two-tone haired guy turned and opened his own locker, which happened to be placed beside Eren’s. Whoever assigned lockers this year obviously did not have a single sense of self-preservation. “That Levi guy gave it to you real good,” Jean continued after a brief pause. “I’ve been in the club with him for more than a year and I’ve never heard him speak so much as two sentences in a row.”

Eren scowled. “Whatever, like I care about some pissy queen like him. He can rant all he likes; I’ll never get it and I have no intention to.”

“You gotta admit, he’s kinda scary.”

“He’s shorter than I am.”

“But kinda disturbingly attractive too.” At that, Eren’s scowl turned murderous lightning-fast. Jean held up his hands to appease him. “Okay okay, sorry, too far. He’s not my type anyway.” He slammed his locker shut. “But anyway, I gotta go; I have Chem with Pixis so fuck me.”

“Hm. No thanks.”

Jean grinned lopsidedly, but didn’t quite meet Eren’s eye when he spoke again. “And hey, about what I said last time…”

“Yeah?”

“…Maybe having you in the group isn’t the _worst_ thing in the world.” Eren raised an eyebrow in surprise, and Jean hastily added; “Maybe just second worst, ya know.”

Eren stared for a moment, and then broke into a short laugh. “Wow, rude. Apology accepted, though.” Jean winked at him and then strode off with his usual loping gait, slinging his bag over his shoulder. What a dick. Why did Eren value this person in the slightest?

He attempted to stuff the extra papers and unidentifiable shit back into his locker, then slammed it shut and stood up abruptly. He nearly ran straight into some guy who was positioned right beside him, shoulders back against the lockers and ankles crossed.

“Wow,” Levi deadpanned as he noticed Eren’s lingering smile. “I didn’t know that face of yours was capable of an expression aside from ‘I’m angry at the world and it makes me look constipated.’ And because of _that_ kid no less.” He motioned dismissively in Jean’s direction.

Eren’s smile rapidly morphed into a frown.

“That’s rich, coming from _you._ ”

Levi huffed. “Oh, I smile plenty. It just doesn’t show up here.” He waved a palm over his face. Eren was distracted by the rings on his fingers and the metal dragon curved around the rim of his ear.

“What do you want,” Eren snapped, shuffling his books to his other arm and glancing pointedly at his watch. Five minutes till class started.

Levi simply leveled him with an appraising look. “Hm… Come ditch with me.”

Eren nearly dropped his books. “ _What?!_ I don’t even know you!”

“So if you _did_ know me, you would?”

“That’s not what I said.”

Levi just shrugged and straightened up again. Eren fought back a self-satisfied smirk once he took note of their obvious height difference; kid had probably been stunted at birth or something. Disease of the body often reflects disease of the mind, after all. He thought his mother might have said that once.

“Why ask me?” he couldn’t help but ask himself, though.

“Hanji and Erwin are model students so they never do. You were just standing here, so I wanted to see what would happen if I asked. And I don’t feel like going to History. Shadis is in a bad mood.”

Eren blanched. “You would ditch Professor _Shadis’_ class? Are you fucking insane?” Eren shook his head and stepped away. Figures, a guy like him couldn’t have many brain cells anyway; all he could think about probably was fucking all the straight boys in school and tainting them. “Well whatever, you go ditch by yourself then. If you don’t mind me saying so, please _fuck off.”_

Levi snorted. “No need to be so rude, I haven’t even done anything to you.”

 _‘You’re talking to me’_ , Eren wanted to say, but he held his tongue with some difficulty. He had to get to class right now, after all. Without his homework sheet, he couldn’t afford to be late and add yet another thing to Ms. Brzenska’s list of ‘why Eren Jaeger is a terrible student’. Hey, at least he never ditched class.

Levi shifted off his spot against the lockers, bending down smoothly and gathering up a stray paper that had scooted under his boot. He stepped in closer and Eren’s body stiffened against his will.

“Is this what you were looking for?”

Eren met Levi’s eyes briefly, cold grey and entirely unreadable, before he glanced down at the proffered sheet. It took him a moment to focus on the hastily scrawled words before he recognized it as his missing Bio homework. What the fuck?

“Oh. Yes, actually.” He blinked, and then took the sheet quickly, stuffing it into his notebook. “Uh… thanks…”

Levi’s lip quirked up in something that might have resembled a smile if you squinted and tilted your head. “See you Friday, brat.”

And then he was gone, off down the hall in the direction of Shadis’ classroom. No ditching then after all? Eren was just really confused. He had no idea what to make of this guy whatsoever. After their last interaction had ended on such a strange note… And now this? He felt like he was missing something, somewhere, some explanation for why everything about this guy was just so hard to understand. Eren ended up standing there by his locker for another few moments before he shook his head and ran to the Biology lab.

He ended up being two minutes late. But at least he had his assignment.

The rest of the week passed in a bit of a blur. A plethora of in-class exams and long-term projects piling up kept him busy throughout the day, and the bits of free time he had usually ended up with him accompanying Mikasa to her fencing meets because the varsity team was starting up practice again this week.

Not that Eren really cared much for the fencing, but it was always entertaining to see how the naïve little freshmen thought they had a chance against his sister. Hint: they didn’t.

(At least one person always walked out of there in tears. It was pretty funny.)

But by the time Friday came along, all Eren wanted to do was go home and sleep; he’d forgotten everything that had happened earlier that week anyway. (Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d nearly run into Hanji on Wednesday and had had to flee for his life for fear of recognition.)

Sadly for Eren, the universe did not take pity on his plight and the GSA meeting was not miraculously cancelled. With Armin practically dragging him out of the classroom at the end of the day and towards Room 104, Eren didn’t even have a chance to plan an escape. Goddamnit.

So here they were, _again,_ and Eren wanted to die.

He leaned in to whisper something in Armin’s ear, but the blond just shot him a severely unimpressed look. “ _No_ , Eren. I’m not going to stand in front of you; the whole point is that you’re supposed to get to know the _other_ people,” he replied in a far-too-loud tone of voice.

Hanji had proposed this horrendous exercise: they’d been paired off into two groups, one inner and one outer circle facing each other. The point was to answer a question posed by Hanji in one minute to the partner in front of you, switch roles, and then move two steps over to begin again with a different person.

And Armin was being a major dickhead.

Eren looked around for his sister, but she wasn’t paying him any attention for once. This week, Mikasa had had been able to actually join, though she fit in so seamlessly no one would have believed she’d missed the introductory meeting. Eren just felt so awkward right now it wasn’t even funny. Fuck _everything._

He shuffled around in the inner circle until it appeared everyone else had paired off; Eren found himself, thankfully, facing Sasha. Sasha was fine. He could deal with Sasha.

He noticed Armin shifting uncomfortably next to him, and recognized bitch-face Annie in front of him, her dead stare on Armin’s reddening cheeks. Ah. Eren recalled his best friend telling him last year that he’d had a bit of a ‘thing’ for Annie. Oh well… _Karma’s a bitch, huh Armin? If you’d just stuck with me this wouldn’t have happened._

Mikasa, on his other side, was facing Jean, and the stupid horseface was looking more than a little shell-shocked. Okay, Eren would never think of Mikasa this way – she was practically his sister, _ew_ – but even he could recognize how goddamn beautiful Trost High’s honor roll ice queen was. Frankly, he didn’t entirely blame Jean.

Hanji was fast approaching and Eren hunched his shoulders, not wanting to catch her eye, and focused on Sasha instead. Sasha was… focusing on a bag of pretzels in her hand. Okay.

“So we’ll start off with a nice and easy introduction question before we get to the heavy stuff, yeah?” Hanji began, spinning on her heel. “I was inspired by Eren’s wonderfully worded question last class: ‘why the fuck are we all here?’ So, talk to your partner about when and how you got involved in the LGBTQ community; one minute, go!”

Eren sighed, avoiding all eye contact with anyone and everything. Sasha sucked messily on one finger and then smiled up at him. “So… D’you wanna start?”

Might as well just get this over with.

“When did I get involved with the gay community, let’s see…” He pretended to think about that. “Probably last week. When I was forced to join this damn club. I mean, I have one gay friend but there are so many things to hate about him already that the fact that he’s gay, or whatever he even is, doesn’t particularly add that much. So as for ‘involvement’, that’s pretty damn limited – what?” Sasha had stopped munching pretzels and was eyeing him with a strange expression, causing him to break off his rant. “Why are you looking like that?”

She swallowed her mouthful. “I thought you were… I don’t know, I thought you were exaggerating last time?” She frowned. “You would _hate_ someone just because they’re gay?”

Eren groaned internally. Not this again. “I don’t care; I just don’t want to have anything to do with these people! And now because of this club _,_ I don’t have a choice. So I’m _sorry_ for being a little bitter about it,” Eren snapped, louder than he intended. Sasha seemed to shrink in on herself at the outburst, and it occurred to Eren that he probably shouldn’t take his frustration out on his friend like this. She wouldn’t understand anyway.

“Uh…”

“Look never mind, I didn’t mean—”

Eren was saved from having to bullshit some apology by Hanji telling them all to switch roles.

Sasha looked somewhat relieved as well. “Connie and I got involved like… A few years ago? I don’t even know when. We had a few queer friends and they were so fabulous we wanted to learn more about the community I guess.” She tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “We were two of the first members of this club, like w _ay_ back! It’s great.” She beamed at him, but then her eyes lost a bit of their shine. “I would say you’ll love it here but… uh. I guess I can’t really, right?” She laughed awkwardly and Eren forced a smile.

They stood for a moment, silently, and Sasha took comfort from her packet of pretzels again. Man, this exercise was so fucking awkward. Eren glanced around at the excited chatter surrounding him. How did everyone else have so much to talk about?

“Okay! Inner circle move one step to the right; outer one move to the left. You should all be in front of someone new now.” Hanji prowled around them like a cat stalking its prey.

Eren swallowed nervously. Next up was Reiner Braun, the great big buff guy who could probably total Eren with one gentle tap. Eren would never admit this out loud, but he was rather intimidated by the guy, despite his despicably genuine smile, protective nature, and obvious homosexual tendencies. Something about his squinting eyes just didn’t add up. And besides, weren’t gay people supposed to be kind of thin and scrawny and _feminine?_ Definitely not looking like this and having a secure position as quarterback on the football team.

It was also because of _his_ massive high school-wide party last year (and because of Jean… and the photos on Armin’s phone…) that Eren was in this whole mess.

Eren wiped a sweaty palm on his pants and nodded stiffly. “Hi. I’m Eren.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Reiner laughed. “I’m Reiner, obviously. I’ve heard a lot about you from Annie.”

Eren blinked, shooting a quizzical look down the line to where Annie had moved a few steps away when they’d switched partners. Uh… _what?_ Eren had barely exchanged three words with Annie in the three years he’d known her. She must have heard things from Mikasa. How wonderful.

Because Reiner seemed to be a naturally talkative person, Eren didn’t have to try and come up with a reply to that. The question this time was: ‘what were the terms, positive and negative, relating to queer people that were used in your household when you were young?’

Eren decided right then and there that he should probably not answer this one out loud.

“Well, I have no idea actually,” Reiner hummed, “my parents have always been kinda cool with it. I guess they didn’t really know much either? We just had a ton of gay family friends when I was a kid and that was never an issue. I think I kinda knew I was gay like ages ago, and I’d constantly make jokes and things so… when I came out, they didn’t even blink. Terms? We just kinda called things like they were, no need to censor words, ya know?”

Eren shrugged, glancing away. This whole situation just made him so terribly uncomfortable, but he’d promised Armin he’d try to be sociable. “My family didn’t throw around terms either until recently,” he said, and that wasn’t exactly a lie. “I didn’t even know gay people existed until I was nine or something.”

Reiner scoffed. “Know what I think? It’s crazy that some kids get to be like eleven, sometimes twelve, without even knowing what the word gay means. The only way we can hope to change the way things are is by making it a part of the norm, and like, kids gotta experience that when they’re still young!”

What bullshit. “But young children aren’t mature enough to be able to differentiate what is… acceptable, and not.” He refrained from saying ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with a great effort of will.

“Well that’s exactly the problem: there is nothing unacceptable about being gay, and kids know that better than anyone before they’ve been indoctrinated by their parents’ views.” He sent Eren very unsubtle pointed looks as he said that.

“If they’re possessed by the devil, perhaps.”

Reiner snorted a laugh. “The devil himself, huh? So that means most everyone in this room has been possessed by the devil? We might as well turn this club into a _cult_ instead!”

Eren ignored that remark. “I’m just saying. You wouldn’t want to taint the minds of the children before they can make their own judgments.”

“Wo-ow.” Reiner glanced around, as if he needed someone there to share this absolute absurdity with. Unfortunately for him, everyone else was deep in their own conversations as well. “I honestly don’t know what to say, and believe me, that’s a first.” He laughed, a great booming laugh, and Eren half shrunk into himself.

“Switch!” Hanji cried, and Eren took a relieved breath. Maybe now he could find himself a decent partner… They shuffled around again, and Eren found himself facing yet another tall, blond, buff guy. _Seriously?_

 _“_ Ah, good afternoon, Eren,” the guy greeted, and all Eren could think of in that moment was _‘the eyebrow game is strong with this one’._ The guy made as if to extend his hand, but then retracted it, smiling apologetically. Eren instantly disliked him (and his eyebrows). It was _his_ job to rudely refuse a proffered hand; not for the other to rudely refuse to offer it.

“My name is Erwin. Hanji and I were two of the founders of this club, way back when. I’m sorry I couldn’t come welcome you and your friends individually last meeting.”

What the fuck, how was this guy even real? Was he some kind of soccer dad stuck back in high-school?

“It’s fine…” Eren dismissed, rather taken-aback, and avoiding eye contact.

Hanji’s question this time was ‘what is hard about coming out to your parents and siblings.’ Erwin initiated the conversation, telling Eren that he’d decided not to come out to his family, not because they were conservative – instead, his father was surprisingly open minded – but because they had a habit of not sharing much about their personal lives.

“I don’t really mind either way. I don’t suppose it would be ‘hard’, per se, because I don’t define myself by what my parents think of me.”

When it was Eren’s turn to answer, he grit his teeth and turned his face away. “Since I’m not gay, I don’t see how this question is relevant.”

Erwin smiled, and it sent shivers down Eren’s spine, “Hypothetically, perhaps? Can you imagine the potential difficulties?”

 _Stop treating me like your student,_ Eren wanted to say, but Erwin was his senior after all. He shrugged, making a face. “Well, Mutti would probably disown me, skin me alive and throw me in the trash in a bag of my own skin so…” He felt a glimmer of satisfaction at the momentary surprise in Erwin’s expression.

“Oh… I’m very sorry to hear that. Having parents be so close-minded—”

“Don’t fucking insult my mother,” Eren snapped, turning defensive immediately. “You’re acting like I have a problem with that _hypothetical situation_. I’m not gay, so it’s never an issue that would ever come up.”

Erwin hummed thoughtfully. “If you feel that way.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I apologize for the unintentional slight against your mother.”

Eren scowled. What the fuck, everything this guy said felt like it was barbed with another meaning. He had no idea what to make of any of it.

They switched partners yet again, and by this time, Eren was so fucking done he was contemplating simply walking out of the classroom and flipping off anyone who dared to stop him. He glowered angrily across his shoulder at Armin (who was laughing his ass off at something Jean had said), as if it was his entire fault. Well, it _was._ If not for Armin, Eren wouldn’t even have ever set foot in this goddamn classroom.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here,” sneered an unfortunately familiar voice, and Eren’s attention snapped back to the front in record timing. Levi had a terrible talent of making himself completely undetectable in a crowd: Eren hadn’t noticed him all afternoon and had foolishly believed Levi just wasn’t there. Of course, it figured he wouldn’t get through these forty-five minutes without partnering with Levi. Because the universe just hated him today, didn’t it? He’d already gone over this.

Eren pointedly refused to answer him.

“Here’s your last question for this meeting,” Hanji announced, “so make it good. ‘Are sex and intimacy the same thing?’”

Eren made a face. Levi’s eyeliner was more noticeable today, and the unfamiliarity of the sight kept unintentionally dragging Eren’s gaze back to the other’s face. Now, Eren didn’t know much about makeup of course, but even he could see that those wings were practically impeccable. This guy just wasn’t human.

“So… Did you have fun in detention after ditching class the other day?” Eren couldn’t help but snark, eyeing Levi with as much supercilious contempt as he could manage.

“Of course not.” Levi rolled his eyes. “I’m not dumb enough to ditch Shadis’. Only you’re dumb enough to believe that.”

Eren’s eyebrows furrowed. Levi always threw him so off-kilter, he barely even knew what to do with himself. “But—”

“I told you; I saw you standing there and I wanted to see what would happen if I asked. It’s often an excellent judge of character.” Levi was almost smiling as he said that. It made Eren’s skin crawl.

Levi huffed irritably after a moment of thick silence, the awkwardness slowly filling up the space between them. “Well? Aren’t you going to talk?”

Eren crossed his arms over his chest and bit his lip. _Fuck you. You can’t make me say anything._ He knew he was acting like a brat but what else was he supposed to do? Levi was… indecipherable. And Eren liked being in control of his conversations.

Levi eyed the room, a bored expression on his face. He seemed to hesitate, but then mentally shrug. “Fine, then. Sex and intimacy? Obviously not. You can have the most intimate relationship with someone and never have it progress past cuddling in bed and watching Netflix, I suppose.”

Eren almost laughed. That was practically his relationship with Armin. What, was Levi going to read some gay subtext into that too?

“It’s hard to get more _intimate_ that shoving your dick into someone’s—” Eren broke off, conflicted. And then berated himself for breaking his vow not to engage in conversation.

Levi’s eyes narrowed. “No, it’s not. What about all the little touches that mean nothing sexual, like holding hands, giving hugs, lying in their lap. Have you ever even _been_ in a relationship?” Eren dropped his gaze, and Levi snorted. “Well, that explains a lot.”

Eren found himself wondering suddenly whether Levi was a virgin. No, probably not, not with the kind of cool confidence and sex appeal that he exuded. …Okay, that just got weird. Eren didn’t want to think about him in that context ever again.

After a pause, Levi shifted his weight to his other foot. “The thing around your neck, is it a cross?”

“What?” Eren tugged self-consciously at his necklace, the metal cool against his skin. He pulled out the key from where it was tucked into his shirt. “No. I mean… well, Mutti thinks it is,” he let out a little laugh. “But my dad gave this to me before he left, um… eight years ago. I have no idea what it opens, but it’s the only thing I have left of him so…” He shrugged. “It’s kinda weird, I know.”

Levi’s eyes held a glimmer of interest. “It’s more intriguing than weird, really.”

Eren blinked at the key, running a finger over the well-worn edges. “My dad was a bit of a mystery himself, so I guess it’s fitting.” He tucked it back out of sight, feeling awkward with Levi’s dark gaze on him. “We’re not really answering the question,” he pointed out.

The other boy snorted. “Fuck the question. We’re done now anyway.” He shot one last look at Eren, then turned on his heel and left the circle on a beeline for his backpack; sure enough, Hanji called to them not a moment later. Eren watched him go with something akin to disappointment. Levi was a bit of a mystery too, and despite Eren’s intrinsic dislike, he too couldn’t help being intrigued.

He sighed, heading towards the other desk where he’d left his shit.

“So? You survived?” Armin bumped him with his hip as he passed.

Eren shrugged, looking down at the desk. He supposed it could have gone worse. “I guess so.” Armin paused, probably hearing something further in Eren’s voice, and shot him a skeptical look. He held his tongue though.

Mikasa joined him on his other side. “I might go home with Annie tonight,” she told them, wrapping the red scarf of hers around her neck and pulling it up to her nose. “Will you be okay?”

“No, I’m going to somehow be kidnapped and murdered on the public bus during the half-hour that I’m out of your sight,” Eren snorted, swinging his backpack over one shoulder. “Have fun with Annie. Although, I don’t know what kind of fun the two of you can even have, you don’t even speak. Maybe stare at plants until they wither and freeze over, that could be entertaining.”

Mikasa punched him in the arm. It was probably intended to be a gently irritated reprimand, but it hurt like a motherfucker. He hobbled away, clutching his bicep and dragging Armin after him. “Don’t worry, I’ll let Mutti know. C’mon Armin, we’ll miss the bus!” The three of them usually took the public bus together back to Shiganshina drive, because Armin lived only two blocks away from them with his grandfather. It was a beautiful stroke of luck that they were so close. It meant Armin could spend about as much of his time in Eren’s room as in his own.

They said their goodbyes and hasty ‘see you next week’s, and then left the room. Eren couldn’t express how relieved he was that this ordeal was finally over. Two weeks down! He could definitely get through these two months at this rate.

He caught himself looking around absentmindedly for Levi, realizing he was the only one he hadn’t waved goodbye to. _As if you wanted to see him any more than you already do,_ he told himself with a derisive snort. Instead, he turned back to Armin and asked him about the English essay due on Monday.

 

 


	3. The Delicacy of a Bruise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pocket stain-remover comes in handy, Erwin is a dick, and Eren keeps ending up alone with Levi under questionable circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm overwhelmed by the response this has gotten so far. Your encouragement means a lot to me ;w;

 

Though they were already well into the second week of October, the truly cold weather was still holding off. The wind, a reminder of the season to come, nipped sharply at Eren’s cheeks in the mornings while he waited for the bus, but by mid-afternoon he could fool himself into thinking it was still August. Well… Mostly. If he ignored his autumn coat and woolen scarf.

But the presence of the sun, though weak, meant that they could still eat lunch outside without freezing their sorry asses off. Apparently the whole high school had a collective conscience and was trying to make the most of this year’s last few warm days as well, because each day the courtyard was dotted with student groups like grazing cows.

Eren spread his coat down on the grass and then collapsed beside his best friend’s prone form, tearing into his sandwich with relish. Armin had his nose in a book, his own lunch still untouched.

“Whatchu reading?” Eren asked with his mouth full, accidentally spraying a few crumbs onto the clean pages. Armin gently brushed them off, sending Eren a dirty look from the corner of his eye.

“It’s about the geology of the Tierra del Fuego. Did you know that they’re actually part of the Andes, and some of the peaks are over seven-thousand feet high? … Ah never mind, it wouldn’t interest you anyway.”

“It’s _non-_ fiction?” Eren didn’t understand why anyone would waste their free time reading that, not to mention their lunch period. He loved reading too, don’t get him wrong, but those were _novels._

Huffing, he glanced around at the other students and decided to people-watch because Armin was not capable of human interaction at the present moment. Eren caught sight of Sasha and Connie sneaking away off campus, probably to go raid a café for extra food or… maybe the supermarket, for some potatoes. He laughed quietly to himself. Those kids were weird.

To his surprise, he noticed a group of three unfortunately familiar faces seated under the great oak by the gym entrance across the yard: Erwin, Levi and Hanji. Levi was lounging back on his elbows, breathing cigarette smoke into the air above him. Erwin was leaning against the trunk of the tree, eating something out of a tupperware container, and Hanji was sitting cross-legged before them, gesturing excitedly.

Eren wouldn’t have guessed that the three of them were friends; they seemed such polar opposites. But it did make sense when he thought about it – Erwin had mentioned that he and Hanji were founders of the GSA club, and from their interactions that first class, it was clear Levi and Hanji at least knew each other well.

Not that Eren was particularly invested in mapping out the social groups in his high school. Armin flipped a page beside him, and… Eren figured it wasn’t like he had anything better to do anyways.

So back to staring at the three seniors, it was.

He could see their lips move, but could not hear what they were saying, (though he certainly did hear it when Hanji cracked up at something Levi had said; seriously. that woman sounded like a banshee). A few minutes later, Hanji stood up, waved them goodbye, and bounced off towards the library despite the fact that lunch break was only half-over.

Eren began to bore of simply staring at the two men like the major creep that he was, but they weren’t even talking, and Levi was on his second cigarette. Eren was considering poking Armin repeatedly in the stomach until he was forced to pay attention to him, when Erwin decided to move.

The blond leaned over suddenly, pulling the cigarette from Levi’s lips, and dipped his head to close the distance between them. Eren realized what they were about to do, and acrid revulsion bubbled up rapidly in his throat, though he was curiously unable to look away. Holy crap…! No way. They were in _public!_

Before Erwin could kiss him, however, Levi’s palm connected with the other’s jaw, shoving the taller boy off of him with the force of the blow. Even Eren, at his distance, could see the anger rolling off his body as Levi abruptly stood up, all a series of sharp, hard lines. They must have exchanged a few cutting words, because then Levi spun on his heel and stalked off across the courtyard, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Eren watched him pass by, hiding behind his sandwich.

He cast one judging glance back towards Erwin, seeing him still lazing there casually smoking Levi’s abandoned cigarette as if nothing had happened, and wrapped up the remains of his sandwich without really thinking. He dropped the packet on the ground beside Armin, tightening his scarf.

“Hey ‘Min, I’ll be right back…”

Armin hummed in acknowledgement, barely looking up from his page, so Eren trotted off across the yard in the direction Levi had disappeared in, ignoring the voice in his mind asking what the hell he thought he was doing.

He stepped through the door into a deserted corridor, but Levi was nowhere in sight. There were rows of empty classrooms he might have vanished into, and a stairwell at the end of the hallway and… Well, there were the bathrooms here, too. Eren crept up to the half-open door, hearing the soft sound of water running. He hovered outside for a long moment, not exactly sure what he was planning on doing and why he was even here. He should probably just leave. Following an upset Levi to the bathroom, alone, was even creepier than the ‘silently staring at him eating lunch from across the courtyard’ that he’d been doing earlier.

The sound of the running water abruptly turned off, and Eren flinched when Levi’s irritated voice called out to him: “You might as well just come in, I know you’re there.”

Eren contemplated fleeing but… well, he’d never been the cowardly type. So he shrugged instead, and stepped in through the door, trying to look casual. He met Levi’s eyes in the mirror, and the other’s registered slight surprise.

“Oh. It’s you.”

Eren’s gaze slid from the reflection to stare at the back of Levi’s head. “Who were you expecting?”

Levi stiffened, and then turned the sink back on with a flick of his wrist. “No-one. It’s a public bathroom.”

Eren shuffled awkwardly. He didn’t have to piss and it was too weird to just stand there and make it more obvious than it already was that he’d followed Levi here with no purpose, so he approached the sink himself and began washing his hands mindlessly. He noticed Levi was trying to wash out what appeared to be a coffee stain on his sleeve, becoming gradually more frustrated as the seconds ticked by. Eren turned off his sink.

“I have a… You know those little pocket stain removers?” He dropped his backpack to the ground and rummaged through the front pocket, then held out the little orange tube in Levi’s direction. The other took it after a long, suspicious pause.

“…Thanks.” Levi held his wet sleeve against the edge of the sink and rubbed at the stain with the remover. “Stupid shitty-glasses,” he murmured after a moment, as if in explanation. “Always spilling crap on me. I should invest in one of these things too.” He held the stick up to the light and examined it carefully. Eren nearly cracked a smile at the genuine concentration on Levi’s face.

He met Levi’s eyes briefly as he returned the stain remover, and then swallowed nervously. “Erwin,” he blurted suddenly, just as Levi was about to turn away. “Is he your boyfriend?”

Levi’s eyes narrowed and his expression became shuttered at record speed. He huffed a humorless laugh. “Of _course_ you would have seen that,” he breathed, mostly to himself, “that’s why you’re here.” He turned away and pulled down his coat from where he must have slung it over the edge of the stall earlier. “If you’re here to kindly inform me that I’m a worthless heathen and I am going to Hell, save yourself the breath; I know that already.”

“I… No, that’s not, that’s not why—”

“Erwin’s not my boyfriend,” Levi sighed, shrugging on his coat. “But sometimes he likes to think he is.”

Eren bit his lip, wondering what to make of that cryptic remark. As Eren mused, Levi pulled out a new cigarette and rolled it absentmindedly between his fingers, leaning back against the edge of the sink. His eyes were trained on the ground, staring blankly at the dirty tiles as if they were the most fascinating things he’d seen all day.

“Well?” Levi looked up eventually, raising an eyebrow. There was something strange in his eyes. If Eren didn’t know any better, he would have said Levi looked vulnerable for one brief blink of an eye. “You got anything else to say or do you need to go take a dump? You’re not gonna stand around here and see me cry.” His lips curled spitefully, and he gestured towards the door with the unlit cigarette.

Miffed, Eren snatched up his backpack again. So much for attempting to be helpful. _Is that even what you were trying to do?_ Eren felt like maybe he’d made a mistake, coming here.

“Uh… right. See you around,” he dismissed, ignoring the unblinking grey gaze on the back of his head as he retreated quickly from the bathroom, just in time to bump into Armin who was waiting for him outside with Eren’s half-eaten sandwich.

“You didn’t finish eating; where did you go? I had to sit all by my lonesome self all lunch.”

Eren laughed, though it felt a bit forced. “You were having a perfectly nice date with your geography textbook; I didn’t want to be third-wheeling.”

“It’s not a _textbook,_ Eren!” He thwacked Eren on the arm with the aforementioned monstrosity, and the brunet yelped with pain. Thank god for friends like Armin. He wouldn’t make it through each day without a few new bruises otherwise.

 

 

 

The week thereafter seemed to drag on by slower than Armin could run in P.E. It wasn’t a good week at all. Eren was behind on work, _again,_ and the stress was getting to him such that even his mother noticed how dead he looked in the mornings. Sleep had been pretty non-existent the last few days, after all.

Friday afternoon couldn’t come quickly enough; not because Eren enjoyed the one hour in hell he had to endure every week, but because it meant one hour he could sleep peacefully and no one could get mad at him for slacking off. The deal had been that Eren _attend_ the meetings, not that he had to participate.

As it was, Eren’s dream was shattered into a million little fragments the moment he entered Room 104 and Hanji attacked him. Literally, attacked him, by spontaneously glomping him and giggling wildly.

“Do you like cookies? Can you cook? Can you bake? Wait, d’you even to know why cookies have the word ‘cook’ in them when they’re made through baking? I don’t understand English. And no one has been able to answer me; I’ve asked everyone in this room. Hey no, Eren come back!” Hanji grabbed his arm painfully as he tried to escape her hold, and he fought back a panicked whimper.

“No. Eren can’t cook.”

Oh beautiful, wonderful Mikasa. Eren backed away several feet the moment Hanji let go of him to turn her attention on his sister. As much as Eren hated it whenever Mikasa came to his rescue, in this moment he couldn’t be more grateful.

“You can’t cook?” Hanji looked scandalized. “Well you’re going to have to cook anyway. We’re going to do a bake sale!” She pressed her palms together in front of her.

Eren just wanted to sleep.

As it turned out, they were scheduling a fundraising bake sale to happen sometime in the next three weeks, in order to raise money for future activities in the club. Future activities? No thanks. Eren was going to be out of here the minute the Christmas vacation rolled around, and he severely doubted anyone would appreciate his participation anyway.

Hanji, of course, had no concept of this. He’d been rude as fuck to her, yet she still treated him like he was an instant friend. And terrifying though she was, Eren couldn’t help but be drawn to her boundless energy anyways. So how could he break her heart when she called him over to an empty seat and proceeded to come up with a job for him to do this session?

Okay no, it was more like he didn’t get a chance to throw a word in otherwise as she plonked him down in a chair and rattled off instructions from her clipboard. Mikasa failed to liberate him a second time.

To his horror, Eren found himself sitting next to the one asshole in this room he could stand even less than the others. He’d disliked this guy from the beginning, but after that gross stunt in the courtyard earlier that week…

“You and Erwin are going to work on designing the posters,” Hanji told them. “Make them gay, but make them look nice. Erwin, you manage that already,” She laughed. “Do one and then we’ll make photocopies to post around the school.” She spun away to give her orders to the next group.

Eren groaned and reached into his bag for a half-crumpled sheet of lined paper which he spread out half-heartedly on his desk. He watched with growing disbelief as Erwin pulled out a spotless grey folder beside him, undid the elastics binding it, and slid out a perfectly smooth sheet of white paper, complete with a disdainful look at Eren’s scrap as he did so. Seriously?

No wonder he and Levi were best friends.

Speaking of Levi… Eren shot a few surreptitious glances around the classroom, but the guy was nowhere to be seen. How odd. Eren was well-aware of Levi’s uncanny ability to simply disappear when he didn’t want to be noticed, but he was definitely not in this room today.

Not that it mattered either way.

Eren coughed, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “Well then. Let’s get this over with?” he grumbled, glancing over jealously at Armin and Mikasa who had been paired together with Jean. Not that he wanted to be paired with Jean, fuck no. But still _._ He could threaten to punch Jean in the face and get away with it. That was certainly not the case here.

Erwin nodded and took out a black pen from his pencil case. “We need to make it stand out to catch people’s interest, without making it garish or ridiculously colorful.”

“But Hanji said gay.”

“ _And_ nice. Rainbows are wonderful, but that’s not the only symbol we can use.”

Eren scowled. It felt like Erwin was judging him, speaking down to him like he was a teacher and not a peer. He leaned back in his chair in defeat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Fine. Then what do you suggest?” he snapped. Erwin smiled to himself as he glanced down at his paper, and that only raised Eren’s hackles even more.

“Well, let’s pick a color theme, perhaps?”

“Yeah, sure. Pink and blue?” He shrugged.

“Hmm… Won’t that make it look like a baby shower? What about green and white?” Erwin tapped the pen against his lips and looked at Eren as if he actually valued his opinion. Fuck you, Erwin.

“If you already knew what you wanted, why did you even ask me?” Eren retorted, turning away and putting his pencil to paper. He decided to ignore Erwin’s infuriating presence and sketched instead the first image that came to mind; he started with a quadrilateral emblem shape, and filled out the inside with the silhouette of a horse’s head. Struck with an idea, he added a flowing mane and a pointed horn to the center of its forehead.

Green and white, huh? Eren scrambled for his tin of colored pencils and started filling in the emblem he’d drawn, shading the unicorn in dark green and the background in grey, leaving its mane and horn white. He lost himself in his work, as he was wont to do when it came to art, and not even Erwin’s presence could distract him.

“Wah, Eren, that looks amazing!” exclaimed Hanji from behind him, making him jump. “I had no idea you were an artist!”

“Oh, um, this is just a sketch, I’m not—”

“Ooh! We should make this our mascot, look, it’s very classy!” Hanji tore the paper from his desk and held it up to the light. Eren chewed his lip and glowered at anyone who turned to look at them.

“We’ll certainly use it on the poster,” Erwin said, “as it’s very fitting.” He gently removed the paper from Hanji’s clutches and smoothed it out, then smiled at Eren. “See, this works just fine.”

Damn him, Eren wasn’t even drawing the stupid thing for Erwin’s stupid poster. Why the fuck did he have to be so patronizing about every little thing? Eren pointedly didn’t answer, simply stared blankly at the poster design Erwin had sketched himself.

“If you could draw the unicorn again here at the top it would be perfect, no?”

“I sense that I don’t have a choice in the matter so sure, why not.”

Erwin chuckled. “Levi did mention that you have a problem being told what to do, but I never imagined you would be quite this… obstinate.”

Eren turned to him in surprise, forgetting his resolve to not speak to Erwin more than was strictly necessary. “Levi talks about me?”

Erwin shot him a sidelong look, and then took out a fresh sheet of paper for their final version. “Well…Perhaps ‘talk’ is a bit too kind of a word, maybe more like ‘rants furiously.’ But yes, indeed he has.”

Goddammit, did this man have no redeeming qualities other than his freakishly good looks? He was starting to piss Eren off more than Jean ever managed to, and that was saying something. He scowled furiously at his paper, resolving yet again to not dignify Erwin with conversation for the rest of the session, but by the end of those forty-five minutes he was still left feeling like an ant squished under somebody’s shoe.

Eren was so glad he had a friend group like Armin and Mikasa, because they were infinitely easier to get along with than Levi’s.

Not willing to delay his much-needed sleep any longer than was necessary, Eren dropped his pencils the moment the hour hand shifted to five o’clock. At least the fucking poster was done. Erwin could just deal with the rest by himself; Eren out.

“Armin, we’re gonna miss our bus if you dilly-dally any longer!”

The said Armin turned to him with a sheepish look, not making a move to pack up his laptop that Jean was staring intensely at. “I ah… I’m actually going to stay behind with Jean for a bit, if that’s alright?”

Eren blinked, glancing at the other boy who was now sending Eren the most infuriatingly smug look Eren had ever seen on anybody’s face. Fuck, his day just had to get even better, didn’t it?

“Careful, Kirschtein, keep that face up any longer and it might just get stuck that way. Sure, ‘Min. I’ll catch you on Monday.” His friends were allowed to have other friends, too. Of course they were. Eren was not bothered by that in the slightest. Nope.

He turned hopefully towards Mikasa, but she hadn’t begun packing up her things either. Instead, she was talking quietly with Annie in the corner, and upon further inspection, he realized they were standing far too close together for it to be a normal conversation and… okay, evidently Mikasa was out of the question too. On second thought, she had mentioned that she would probably go home with Annie again this Friday to “play videogames,” though he was now starting to doubt that was what actually happened. God, please tell him Annie wasn’t a dyke… He’d thought she was with Bertholt!

He didn’t want his own sister turning into one of _them_ too.

That meant he was stuck going home alone, which wouldn’t have been a problem if it wasn’t currently negative fifty outside, if he wasn’t missing a jacket, and if he had some money on him left for the bus; three sad facts of life that he didn’t realize until he was already out of the classroom. His pride wouldn’t let him go back in there to leech off of Armin, though.

Fuck this fucking day, Eren was so done with everything.

So it was no wonder, really, that when he saw Levi lounging against the wall in an adjacent hallway, typing away on his phone as Eren passed, that all Eren’s festering fury just broke out from his walls.

“Where the fuck were you today?” he accused, walking right up to the older boy. Levi didn’t look surprised to see him, but then again, Levi never looked surprised.

“Aw. Did you miss me?”

Eren snarled. Levi had no right to act like this, no right. Eren was fucking pissed. He turned and attempted to push past him, to make some kind of dramatic exit or whatever, except Levi was suddenly blocking his way out, having moved faster than Eren thought was possible.

“Move,” Eren ordered with more bravado than he felt, flinching slightly from the way Levi’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“No no, I want to get the bottom of this,” he said, his tone ironically apathetic. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this worked up. It’s a rather attractive look on you.”

Eren stepped forward anyway, reaching out to shove Levi aside. Except, Levi caught his hand with his own in a vice-like grip, twisting him back towards the wall. Eren’s eyes went wide and he wrenched his hand away, furious.

“Don’t touch me!” He hated how Levi held on for a second longer than was necessary, his skin oddly cool against Eren’s heated one. “Don’t touch me you fag, I know how it is with your kind, always trying to find an excuse to feel normal people up!”

Levi went perfectly still, not a muscle moving, and if Eren was honest with himself it was probably one of the most terrifying things he had ever witnessed. Levi’s face was completely expressionless, so devoid of anything that Eren felt himself freeze up in response.

“…What did you just say?” Levi spoke eventually, in a dangerously low voice, his eyes about three shades darker than normal so they looked entirely black. Eren swallowed nervously, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in the empty hallway with Levi’s suppressed fury like a huge, ominous wave rising up before him.

Unfortunately, Eren’s life-long resolve to never back down to anyone was stronger than his fear.

“I called you a fucking fag, that’s what, and I’m not taking it back anytime soon.”

Levi punched him squarely in the face, too swift for Eren to even blink. The excruciating pain exploded behind his eyes as he was sent slamming into the wall behind him like a broken doll, shock making his vision go dark for a moment.

“ _Fuck you_ , Jaeger.”

Levi stared at him for a second longer, lips twisted into a sneer, before he carefully wiped his bloody knuckles on a handkerchief in his pocket. Then he turned on his heel and departed, leaving Eren slumped on the floor of the hallway with a bloody, broken nose, and an inexplicable shame curdling in his stomach that made him feel sicker than the physical pain did.

 

 


	4. Don't Lick Your Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No rest for the wicked. Jean and Mikasa are nosy and homicidal, respectively, and Levi is suspended. Eren ends up in Levi's car despite it all.

 

The following weekend was probably one of the strangest Eren had ever lived through. Things seemed to pass in a blue hazy blur, and he couldn’t fathom why. This certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been in a fight, nor was it the first time he’d had his ass handed to him on a shining silver platter. Hello, he was friends with one fucking equestrian pain in the ass, and the first two years of their relationship had been predominantly characterized by a flurry of fist fights. (He liked to think he’d matured just a bit since then. They fought more with words these days than swords.)

He’d never actually gotten his nose broken, though.

There was a rule in the universally acknowledged Bro Code: you don’t touch the face. Black eyes hurt like a motherfucker and are impossible to hide from your parents, dislocated jaws require trips to the hospital, and broken noses are just one step too far if you’re planning on spending the night at this guy’s house next Friday and expect him to still feed you for free. Hell, Levi must be a thug through and through.

Eren remembered vaguely how Mikasa had found him in the hallway some indefinite time later, cursed bloody murder at the amount of blood on his face, and then forcibly stuffed him into Annie’s car before he could get a moment to say a single word in his defense.

The car tore down the dark streets towards the hospital as if Eren had been fatally wounded, even though he repeatedly assured Mikasa that he was fine. His protests fell on deaf ears, of course. Mikasa appeared to be furiously listing all the different ways she could kill Levi between tonight and tomorrow morning under her breath, and all Annie did was stare at him dispassionately, so Eren shut up in favor of keeping his dripping nose from making a mess of the backseat.

 

\---

 

Eren’s cell phone was alarmingly active on Sunday evening.

 

 

 **Potato Girl** 5:21pm, Sun

          >> _Erennnn tell us exactly what happened on fri! We know we know haaha ha!_ _ヽ_ _(;^o^_ _ヽ_ _)_

 

 

 **Baldie** 5:32pm, Sun

_ >> yoooo dude!! ! What da fizzlyup happened_

_ >> i heard hes been suspended for the nxt week !! Sash told me _

_ >> the shortie I mean, the levi guy_

 

 

 **Potato Girl** 5:39pm, Sun

          _> > I’ll send you virtual potato chips __ಠ_ ___ _ಠ_

_ >> I’m eating them right now_

**Potato Girl** 5:45pm, Sun

          _> > Dnt ignore us we need deeeetails!! _

 

 

 **Baldie** 6:03pm, Sun

_ >> sasha has cme up with like 183742 insane theories _

_ >> send help_

_ >> they all involve some kind of food-pocalypse_

**Baldie** 6:14pm, Sun

_ >> did u die_

 

 

 **Armout** 8:53pm, Sun

          _> > Eren, I understand if you don’t want to talk, but can you please tell your friends to stop harassing me instead? Also, is xxx-xxx-xxxx Sasha’s number?_

 

 

 **Horseface** 10:35pm, Sun

_ >> I swear to god, Jaeger. Please tell me I’ve heard wrong. _

 

 

Eren turned off his phone then. Gossip traveled far too fast, it seemed.

\---

 

Eren walked in on Monday morning after failing to have convinced his sister to let him remove his embarrassing nose-splint. He’d listened to a long tirade about how _“I will not have my brother sporting a crooked nose for the rest of his life, and if I see you take that thing off, you’re going to warrant yourself another trip to the hospital I can guarantee you that.”_ Well then. There was no way he could pretend nothing had happened now.

Eren did value his life, contrary to popular belief.

To his immediate dismay, he noticed that Jean was already there waiting for him, grinning obnoxiously. He wasn’t even in this goddamn class. _Why_ was he here? _Why?_

“Soo—”

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“—is it true?”

Eren glared over the edge of the plastic disrupting his vision. “Is what true?” Better to just play along with Jean’s game. He slumped into his usual seat and closed his eyes tightly, rubbing tiredly at his temples. He wished Professor Pixis would be early for once so Jean would _shut up._

“The school’s gayest kid punched your nose in and you had to be rescued by your sister? Judging by your uglier-than-usual face, I’m guessing that’s about right.” He smirked crookedly, and Eren grumbled something under his breath. How did news like this travel so quickly? No one had even _seen_ them. “Dude, that’s twice now in three weeks that he’s completely kicked your ass.”

“Go a _way,_ Jean.”

“Well, there’ve been other rumors too…” Jean continued without blinking an eye. “Like, that he tried to kiss you…? Somehow I don’t think that one’s right. I mean, you’ve got to be pretty fucked in the head to want to kiss someone like you, no offense, Jaeger.” He snickered. “Actually, offense totally intended.”

Eren pointedly took out his books and set them on his desk.

“And another one; that _you_ tried to kiss _him.”_ Jean tutted, shaking his head. “If he punched you for that, all I can say is kudos to him, kudos to him.”

Eren was preparing himself to punch Jean himself, right in his god-awful horsefaced mouth; Bro Code can go to hell. Except, Professor Pixis chose that exact moment to enter the classroom, and he had no choice but to sit back down in his seat, fuming silently.

Jean sent him a blinding grin, swung his bag over one shoulder, and then shot out of the classroom.

 

\---

 

Armin, tactfully, did not ask him what had happened, though Eren caught him eyeing the nose-splint thoughtfully every so often over the next few days. Mikasa had gotten the bare details from what Eren had been forced to explain to the nurse, and according to Jean, had been glaring at Levi’s friends mutinously whenever she passed them in the hallways, because that was the best she could do without having Levi himself there to glare at.

Eren, for his part, managed to mostly avoid having to speak to anyone else the entire week, mostly by slinking from class to class and avoiding lunch break like the plague.

He felt like he was in middle school again, hiding away in the bathrooms like the complete loser that he was. Fuck it all.

 

\---

“Eren, talk to me.”

“I’m fine.” He pushed past his sister, but she caught him by the arm.

“Don’t lie to me. You’re still upset about him hurting you? Don’t worry; I’ll slice him up with a letter opener the minute I get a chance.” Mikasa’s eyes flashed. Under other circumstances, her dogged loyalty would have been humorously endearing.

“It’s not that, _god_ Mikasa, I don’t need you fighting all my battles for me.”

She stopped, grey eyes narrowing. “You sound like a teenage girl.” Another contemplative pause, wherein Eren knew better than to try to head back to the classroom. When she spoke again, it was in a tone of incredulity. “You’ve _forgiven_ him?”

“Of course not,” Eren sneered, shaking her off and taking a few steps to the side. “I just couldn’t care less. He could go to jail for all I care, or he could show up tomorrow and beg me to be best friends, I just don’t _care.”_

“Jail? Eren what are you talking about, you don’t go to jail for punching someone.”

He snickered. “Hah, well yeah, but if he did you know what?” He grinned lopsidedly, not aware how slightly-hysterical he was sounding. “If he did? He’d.. he’d drop the soap on purpose.” Mikasa’s eyes narrowed to two dangerous little slits, and Eren groaned melodramatically. “Well, _some_ one can’t take a joke. Where’s Connie when I need him…”

Mikasa grabbed him again and forced him back against the school building, so hard the breath shot out of him in a sharp gasp. Some jerk nearby whistled, and Eren flushed indignantly.

“What’s going on with you, Eren? What else did he do to you? _Say_ to you? Why won’t you tell me what the problem is?”

“I’m _fine,”_ Eren snarled, temper flaring. He threw off her hold violently, and she backed away. “Leave me alone, okay? I haven’t been having the best week and… whatever happened is, quite frankly, none of your business anyway.”

He saw the way his words bit into her, saw the widening of her eyes and the shocked parting of her lips, but he turned on his heel before he could see the rest. Goddammit. The Jaeger Temper strikes again, with another casualty under its belt.

 

Mikasa did not speak to him again for the rest of that week, but he probably deserved it.

 

\---

 

By the time Friday rolled around, Eren had begun to relax: some girl’s highly public and dramatic breakup with her boyfriend had become the new hottest thing on the gossip vine, and Eren’s mysterious conflict with Levi was swept somewhat under the rug. Apparently this wasn’t the first time Levi had been suspended, and the novelty was somewhat reduced as a result.

What he hadn’t considered, however, was that Levi’s five-day suspension only included the school hours, which meant he would still be able to attend his afterschool activities on Friday afternoon.

“Did you do the thing for Chem yet?” Eren was chatting with Armin, lounging back in his chair while they waited for Hanji to set them up with something to do.

“Well duh, it’s due tomorrow.” Armin rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Eren, honestly, you’ve got to take this stuff more seriously!”

“Tomorrow’s the weekend!” he countered, throwing his hands up in the air guiltily. “I have the whole day to do it. Besides, who the fuck assigns homeworks due _on_ the weekend, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Why can’t he just assign it for Monday like everyone else?” Professor Pixis was a bit of an oddball in various ways, but that didn’t stop Eren from complaining incessantly.

He noticed, however, how Armin’s eyes suddenly focused on something behind Eren’s shoulder, his lips tightening nervously. A nervous Armin was never a good thing.

Half a second later, someone sat down next to him with a soft rustle of clothing, and Eren visibly flinched.

Well… shit.

This, he had not been expecting _at all._

Eren sat up in his chair and stared straight ahead of him, body unusually rigid. Even without looking, he could feel Levi’s unwavering gaze on him from his right, Armin fidgeting uneasily on his other side like an awkward third wheel.

So many levels of awkward.

For the first time, Eren actually wished that Hanji would come over and relieve them, but his silent pleas went unanswered. She was currently chatting away with Erwin across the room, and no one else was paying them the slightest ounce of attention.

Levi sighed eventually, crossing one leg over the other to catch Eren’s attention, as if he didn’t have it already. “Say, Eren. Do you resent me?” he asked without preamble, voice as smooth and composed as always.

Straight to the point, that was Levi’s way.

Eren shifted uncomfortably, sitting on his hands to stop himself from picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. He turned his face just slightly, surprised to find that Levi wasn’t looking at him. Was it possible that he regretted his actions somehow? Or that he actually cared what Eren thought about him?

Impossible.

“No,” Eren said firmly, the word spilling from his lips before he really had a chance to think about what he was saying. He bit the inside of his cheek. Did he resent Levi for what he’d done? Well… he’d had a week to contemplate that. “You had um… every right to do what you did; I was being a real ass.” He hesitated a moment, then decided to add an, “I’m sorry…” at the end too.

Levi stared at him for a bit, contemplatively, and then gave a short nod. Eren let go of a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and couldn’t help but feel like maybe he’d impressed Levi just a little. For some reason, it had become vaguely important in the last week that Levi not see him as nothing more than dog shit on the bottom of his shoe. Easier said than done, perhaps, after what had happened but… At least Levi wasn’t glaring at him anymore.

Eren waited a breath more, but Levi didn’t seem like he was going to say anything in reply. He scratched his nose and exchanged a look with Armin, who only smiled down at his lap, shaking his head silently. 

 

 

In an uncomfortable déjà-vu of last week, Eren was left alone again at the end of the meeting. Armin had a date with Professor Shadis about some college thing, Mikasa was going to the movies with Annie, and he’d left his bus card at home because he was a class-A idiot. At least he had his coat on this time, and it was a good thing too because it was pouring buckets outside.

Tucking his hands deep into his pocket and hunching his shoulders against the wind, Eren resigned himself to the fifty-five minute trek back to his house. In an attempt to lift his spirits, he told himself that if he cut through the park, he could probably make it in forty-five. It was fine though, honestly, Eren didn’t really mind the rain. Really. Truly.

He did not notice the car pulling up beside him until a quick blast from the horn shocked him out of his thoughts.

“Well? You gonna get in or not? You look like a drowned rat.” Levi was leaning across the passenger seat to call out the open window, one hand on the wheel. Eren simply stared.

“Get your fucking little ass in the car, brat, it’s raining like Satan’s piss outside.”

Eren didn’t hesitate again. He swung open the door and scrambled in, just barely managing to tug his drenched bag inside before Levi was tearing down the street again. Eren fumbled with the seatbelt ungainly before he managed to shut up the annoying beeping sound.

“Can’t you take a bus?” Levi was asking, making a disgusted face at the wet puddle that was now Eren Jaeger.

“Forgot my card. And thanks, by the way.”

Levi snorted. “Just don’t shit on my seats.” He pressed a button on the dashboard, and Eren patted the fabric under his thighs in confusion a moment later.

“You have heated seats!?”

Levi raised a pointed eyebrow. “Yeah, what of it? You’re wet. I’m drying you.”

Eren did a little dance before he could stop himself. “That’s so cool! I’ve never had that kind of luxury before. My mom has this shitty little car that’s like a thousand years old, and it doesn’t even have air conditioning. It’s a nightmare.”

Levi was eyeing him in slight consternation, and Eren grinned sheepishly. Strangely enough, he felt a whole lot more comfortable around Levi now than he had in school, as if the layers of tension between them were part ways nonexistent outside the constraints of the classroom. He chewed his lip absentmindedly, glancing at Levi’s profile.

“Why’d you even bother picking me up?” he couldn’t help asking.

Oddly enough, Levi smirked. “Hm. Punching someone in the face isn’t the best way to start a friendship. I need to redeem myself somehow.”

 _Friendship?_ Eren blinked, resembling a fish. _What?_

Levi took one look at his face and snorted loudly. “Don’t give me that look, shitty brat, I’m only kidding. Hanji obligated me to make it up to you in some way – they adore you, honestly. So here I am, being gracious, so they’ll get off my back. Don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth; I wouldn’t do this out of my own volition.”

 _Yeah,_ Eren thought. He should have known better.

“Oh. Well. Thanks, either way.” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly, dropping his gaze to his lap. The soft purr of the engine made the silence between them only that much more noticeable, as Levi pulled to a stop at the next intersection.

“So where’s your place anyway?” Levi ran a hand through his fringe, shaking the hair out of his eyes absentmindedly. “Right, left, straight, gay?”

Eren’s face scrunched up in mild confusion, not appreciating that joke. “Um… yeah. I mean, it’s just… a right at the end of this road, then left up to— Shiganshina Drive, if you know it.”

Levi hummed, shifting gears quietly. They rode quietly for a minute, while Eren let himself enjoy the smooth run of the car and the warmth at his back.

“So, Eren.” The boy looked up fearfully at the change in Levi’s tone of voice. “I know nothing about you besides the fact that you have major anger management issues, you hate doing homework on the weekend, and you’re a massive dork when it comes to heated seats.”

Eren didn’t know what to reply to that. Was Levi asking him to share? He’d basically _just_ told him that he couldn’t care less about Eren’s wellbeing. What the fuck?

He tugged at a loose thread on his sleeve. “Yeah. Go ahead and guess. There’s not much else.”

Levi tapped the steering wheel with one gloved finger, following Eren’s directions down the road. “Hm… Let’s see. You’re the type to always drink your coffee with too much milk, because you want to look tough and adult but you secretly hate the bitter taste and would much rather prefer a hot chocolate. You put up with it for the sake of caffeine, though. Am I right?”

Eren spluttered indignantly. “Excuse me? I only ever drink my coffee black!” Biggest lie ever told. But Levi would never know that, so whatever.

The older boy smirked knowingly. “Of course, I apologize. Only black coffee for you, noted.” He sounded about as far from sorry as was possible, and Eren scowled. He couldn’t actually be angry though, because Levi was, after all, correct. Dammit.

“Alright well,” Eren retorted defiantly, “you’re… you’re the kind of fake-punk delinquent kid who’s gonna drop out of school before the year is out and…” he fished around for an idea, “…end up becoming a car mechanic.”

“A car mechanic?”

Eren leant back in his seat. “Mhm.”

“Well, that’s blunt. I suppose my coffee metaphor was too subtle for a shitty brat like you, but alright.” Eren looked pointedly out the window, but Levi continued anyway. “Let’s see… Wrong, wrong, wrong and… partly right. As a matter of fact, I have straight-As, so I’m not so sure about the mechanic career path,” he began, listing things off his fingers. “And if there’s one thing you should know about me, brat, it’s that I absolutely hate getting my fingers dirty.”

“Take a right here.”

Levi’s lip twitched. “As for ‘fake-punk’, I don’t even want to know what that means. I didn’t know there were rules about being who you want to be.”

Eren shrugged.

“You’re half-right on one account, though. I did drop out in sixth grade, but that was because I changed schools and had to basically learn a new language.”

Eren suppressed his curiosity, (though the very thought of a sixth-grade Levi was somehow incredibly impossible to picture). Levi was probably only saying all this to get a rise out of him, anyway.

“So you’re what, nineteen?” Eren allowed himself to ask.

“Twenty.”

Eren squinted at him. How the fuck did that even come about? Eren himself was already seventeen, and he was one of the oldest in the class because he’d been held back one year. That made them a fucking three years apart? No wonder Levi called him a brat.

Not knowing what else to say after this revelation, Eren sat silently in his seat, save for giving the occasional direction.

“It’s that one there.”

“The one with the purple flowers?”

“Yep.”

Levi’s car slid to a stop by the side of the road, and he unlocked the passenger door in obvious dismissal. Eren stared out the window for a moment, blankly, wondering what Levi thought of his house. It was a small, two-story Victorian-style house, with stained brick walls and a tiny porch along the side. His mother’s room was on the ground floor, and he and Mikasa shared each half of the top floor, with a bathroom in between. There was a bit of a garden in the front where Mikasa had planted flowers, but that was pretty much it.

“It’s a bit of a shit house, but it’s home, ya know?”

“I don’t care what you think of it.”

“I know,” Eren smiled sadly, opening the car door and shoving his backpack out. The rain had let off for a brief moment, though the air was still heavy with moisture and a light drizzle that caught on his eyelashes and blinded him momentarily. “I’ll see you on Monday, yeah? And send Hanji my thanks, since you obviously won’t take them.”

Levi let slip a lazy grin, which surprised Eren. Frankly, he didn’t think Levi was even capable of smiling. But he didn’t say anything further, just raised his hand in a half-hearted farewell after Eren had shut the door again, then revved the engine and executed an impressive U-turn in the tiny street.

Eren sighed, shouldering his backpack and beginning the tedious search for his keys, hoping the rain would hold till he got his sorry ass inside the front door.

 

 


	5. An Assumption is the Joke; Truth the Punchline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter stage left: Marco Bodt. 
> 
> Also Eren and Armin have a much-needed talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest apologies for the three month hiatus on this fic, I had a lot of shit going on. Thanks again for all your comments and encouragement. I'm back now, and I hope you'll enjoy this next installment!
> 
> Special love to my beta [Ymir](http://www.applecascade.tumblr.com) for her help despite her own shit happening.

 

 

“You asshole, you did that on purpose!”

“No, I didn’t.”

Eren, Armin and Jean were currently arguing in the otherwise-empty student lounge after school. Or rather, Eren and Jean were arguing, while Armin stood in the middle pressing his palm to his face in tired exasperation and praying to whichever deities would listen for his two friends to _shut up._

“You totally did, what the fuck.”

Jean rolled his eyes. “Why would I purposefully spill my coffee on your paper? Jesus Eren, I have better things to do with my life.”

“No, because that’s exactly the kind of douche-move you would do!” Eren snatched up his ruined notebook paper and tossed it across the couch into the trash bin. It wasn’t like he’d even gotten that much written down in the last hour they’d been attempting to work on their upcoming English presentation, but it was the principle of the matter.

“Eren,” Armin began in a placating tone, “I saw him bump into the table—”

“Don’t go defending assholes, ‘Min.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed. “Riiight… someone please enlighten me on who exactly is being the asshole right now.”

“Just go back to the stables where you belong since you’re too dumb to follow the line of argument,” Eren countered.

Jean was saved from having to formulate his – undoubtedly brilliant – reply by the sudden sound of wheels creaking over the linoleum floor, and an unfamiliar voice saying, “Hey now, Jean, you promised me you wouldn’t be getting into any new fights here.”

Eren noticed how Jean’s head whipped around, eyes wide, and he followed the other boy’s gaze to behold a stranger rolling himself slowly towards their group, the wheelchair gliding smoothly across the floor. He had kind eyes and a gently sloping mouth, though his gaze was currently fixed entirely on Jean, as if the room had shrunk to just the two of them.

“Hu—wha— _Marco!?”_ Jean gasped, his face a mask of shocked disbelief. The instant coffee in his hand slipped and spattered to the ground by Eren’s shoes, though the latter knew better than to make a fuss about that right now. Instead, Eren exchanged a questioning look with Armin, but the blond only shrugged unhelpfully.

Jean ran forward, dropping to his knees beside the wheelchair and wrapping his arms around the other’s torso.  The boy, apparently named Marco, laughed genially and flicked Jean’s forehead.

“How are you here?” Jean spluttered.

“I have your schedule memorized.”

“No, but… _here?_ ”

“I’m transferring to Trost as of next week. I wanted to surprise you.”

Jean pulled back in incredulity. “You’re out of the hospital? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Marco smiled again, with a touch of smugness. “I wanted to surprise you,” he repeated in the same tone.

Jean stared for a moment, and then stood up slowly. Marco’s eyes swept over Eren and Armin, as if seeing them for the first time, and he waved his left hand. “Oh hello… Jean?”

“Shit, sorry…” Jean grinned lopsidedly at Eren and Armin, who had remained quiet throughout the oddly heartfelt scene. “This is my best friend, Marco. We used to go to school together, but then my family moved to Trost and a year later Marco was in a car accident so we got split up.”

Eren made a quick calculation: Jean had joined Trost High in ninth grade just like Eren, which meant… Marco must have been in the hospital for over a year? Damn…

Armin made a sympathetic noise. “I’m so sorry about the accident! Are you… I mean…” He trailed off awkwardly, biting his thumb.

The boy chuckled, wheeling himself closer, and Eren could see the spattering of soft honey freckles across his dark cheeks. “It’s alright, I’m used to it. Half my body from the shoulders down is mostly paralyzed, but the doctors still have hope it might come back one day!” He smiled brightly. “Unfortunately that means I can only shake your hands with my left one.” He extended said hand, and Armin stepped forward to take it, then Eren. He was surprised by Marco’s firm grip. In fact, he was surprised by Marco’s all-around genuine brightness. Seriously, if Eren were to be hospitalized for a year and know it’d be a miracle if he were ever able to walk again, he sure as hell wouldn’t accept it so calmly.

Jean gestured towards them half-heartedly. “Yeah so, these are my bros. That’s Armin, he’s probably the most adorable and also the smartest kid you’ll ever meet.”

Eren snorted in amusement at the way Armin blushed. “I’m Eren Jaeger. Also, _we_ ,” he pointed in Jean’s direction, “definitely aren’t friends.” He rubbed his nose under Marco’s scrutiny, thankful that his nose brace had come off the night before.

“Yep, thank you, that’s Eren for you.” He snickered. “He’s German and Turkish and one hot piece of ass.”

Eren turned a scandalized gaze on his friend, sure he must have heard wrong. “Ex _cuse_ me?”

“Hot as in, don’t get him pissed or he’ll fuck shit up.” Jean blew him a kiss.

Marco let out an unrestrained laugh, probably at the look on Eren’s face. “Wow well, okay, I’ll look forward to getting to know you guys then.” He tucked a strand of loose chocolate hair behind his ear.

Eren blinked at Marco, suddenly feeling like something was just slightly off about him. Maybe it was the slant of his eyelashes, or the freckles across his round cheeks, or the musicality of his laugh… Eren frowned.

“Um, this might be super random and no offense, but you kinda look like a girl.”

Jean turned on him instantly like an angry mama-bear. “Jesus fucking Christ, Jaeger, can you go like three seconds without throwing some kind of insult around?! Seriously, just shut your fucking face, no one—”

Marco laid a pacifying hand on his arm. “It’s okay Jean, I don’t mind.”

“But he—”

“It’s fine.” He tilted his head in Eren’s direction. “At birth, yeah I was designated as female, but I’ve identified as male for nearly all my life. I _am_ male.”

Eren stared. After a torturous moment of silence, he opened his mouth. “You have a dick?”

Beside him, Armin face-palmed, but Marco’s lips just twitched in amusement. “Well I… Yes, as a matter of fact, now I do. I started transitioning a few years ago. But it’s not the dick that makes me male.”

Armin poked Eren’s unresponsive arm. “Please, just let it go… Eren…”

He shrugged, breaking eye-contact with Marco. “Yeah, whatever.”

His best friend blinked at Eren in disbelief, and chewed on his lip. “I’ll um… ask Hanji to lead a discussion on transgenderism this Friday, maybe.”

“Hanji?” Marco repeated curiously.

“We’re all part of Trost’s LGBT club,” Jean explained, having calmed down since Eren’s apparent apathy towards the subject. “I know, even Eren. And Hanji’s like our… Supervisor? Coordinator? Do they even have a designated role? Well whatever.” He sighed. “I should probably bring you to Mr. Shadis’ office or something, yeah? Do you have a timetable yet? I still can’t believe you’re actually here.” Jean stepped around and took hold of the manual handles of the wheelchair, a crooked grin splitting his face. “You’re gonna love it at Trost!”

Eren watched silently as the two of them headed off, Jean pushing Marco’s wheelchair before him with what could only be practiced ease. The boy seemed entirely renovated, the surly scowl usually etched on his features softened to a look of joy and pride.

Huh. Well.  

The world is always full of surprises, isn’t it.

 

***

 

 

“So, Marco is Jean’s best friend, huh.” Predictably, Eren couldn't shut up about the new kid during the following days. “He seems like a nice guy. Why do the nice guys always end up with the assholes?” He paused, waiting for Armin to say something like, ‘same reason I’m friends with you,’ but Armin only hummed vaguely. 

“I guess maybe it’s to mellow them out,” Eren continued snobbishly. “In that case, good luck to Marco, because this one horseface is incorrigible.” They continued on their way to _Maria’s_ , the café adjacent to the main school building, which was the communal hang-out place in between classes. The boys shared a free period that afternoon. “And have you noticed how Marco pronounces his name? Jean, like, the French way. Why don’t we call him that? He _is_ French, after all.”

“His mother’s French,” Armin corrected.

“Yeah, whatever.” He tutted. “I wonder what happened to Marco. Car accident and losing your best friend sounds horrible. I’m surprised Jean’s never mentioned him before, they seem so close. We’ve known him for what, two and a half years?”

When he received no reply, Eren glanced over curiously at Armin. Come to think of it, his friend had been rather distracted and silent the past few days.

“Armin?”

“Yes!” He jumped, looking around guiltily. Blue eyes flickered for a moment and then he nodded. “Yes, two and a half years.”

Eren stopped walking pointedly. “Dude, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

The skittish look in his eyes spoke otherwise. Eren grabbed his arm and pulled him into the café, ignoring all protests. “Armin, I may have known Jean for nearly three years but I’ve known you for _eight._ Don’t do that.”

“It’s fine, it’s nothing of importance anyway.”

Eren morphed from righteous asshole to caring friend in less than two seconds. The one thing he couldn’t stand above all else was any injustice against his best friend. Their relationship had always been like this, from the first moment Eren had seen a tiny boy, with awkward braces too big for his mouth and carrying a textbook half his size, be knocked into the dirt on the fifth grade playground of Shiganshina Elementary. No one hurt Armin or they’d feel the wrath of Eren Jaeger; that was fact.

He grabbed Armin by the elbow in the entrance of the café and told him seriously: “Armin, everything you have to say matters.” He pointed him towards their usual table with an expression that held no room for argument, and then turned to the pretty woman behind the counter. He ordered himself a mocha coffee and a green tea for Armin.

“So tell me what’s bothering you.”

Armin huffed in embarrassment, eyes glued to the table top. “Eren…” he whined.

“Is it school?” The work load hadn’t been that bad lately, and Armin never usually had trouble, but things could always change. Armin shook his head, though. “Not Grandfather?” Another shake. “Ah, so it’s finally something in your mostly-nonexistent social life.”

Armin snorted, but didn’t deny it.

“Is it a girl?” he suggested with a grin. “You had that crush on Annie a while back, right?”

Armin’s head snapped up so fast Eren thought he might get whiplash. “What?! No, what, where do you even get that from?” His eyes crinkled at the corners with mirth. “Eren, you’re forgetting the cardinal rule when it comes to short blond people in relationships.” He leaned over the table conspiratorially. “ _There can only be one._ ”

Eren choked on a laugh at the serious look Armin was sending him. He tried to imagine an Armin and Krista couple, for example, and shuddered at the thought. “Okay, jeez, you’re right of course. So not Annie.”

“Never. She’d slay me.”

“But it’s someone?” Eren pressed, and Armin’s smile slipped away again.

They were interrupted by a familiar and derisive laugh from beside their table. “A mocha for Mr. I-only-ever-drink-my-coffee-black, and a green tea for his friend.” The two drinks were set down roughly in front of their respective owners.

Eren’s eyes widened in surprise and an eloquent, “What the fuck are you doing here?” spilled from his lips.

It was Levi. Of course it was, who else.

“I work here, dipshit.”

Eren blinked, taking in his appearance, and he failed to contain his laughter. Levi was currently decked out in some strange white handkerchief-themed attire, one over his nose and mouth, the other tying back his fine hair. The look was completed by a work apron which was clearly a size too large for him, proudly displaying the name _Maria’s_ in red cursive.

Levi’s eyes, sharp above the handkerchief, glittered dangerously in reply. “Don’t give me that look,” he snapped, voice muffled by the white cloth. “A student café is probably the single most unhygienic place on campus; I am not going to willingly subject myself to some horrible air-borne disease.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Eren, waving his hand dismissively. For being such a clean freak, it hadn’t prevented Levi from contracting the disease that made him fancy cocks, Eren thought to himself with a grim sense of pity. But he sent a half-smile Levi’s way anyway, as if to take the cut out of his words, and gestured to Armin. “Now piss off, we’re having an important conversation.”

He turned back to the matter at hand, only to find the blond sending him a long, consternated look. “What?”

Armin shook his head in disbelief. “How are you even talking to him like that?”

“Like what?” Eren frowned. He’d been just as rude as always, was Armin going to go off and lecture him on the virtue of politeness again? Because that had indeed happened once, and Eren never wanted to relive that experience again.

“I just thought you were rather terrified of him.”

“Well duh, he’s Levi.” Eren rolled his eyes, failing to see Armin’s point.

Armin stared a moment longer. “He broke your nose, Eren.”

“I _know_ he—oh!” He hadn’t mentioned what had happened last week, had he? Hm. It had felt so strange at the time he’d simply ignored that that whole conversation in Levi’s car had even happened. “I forgot to tell you. He drove me home last Friday after the GSA meet, you know. Um. We had a bit of a talk so… it’s okay now.”

“Ah, you did mention you had a ride.” Armin hummed. “So you’re…friends now?”

Eren sneered. “Of course not. But we’re not like, sworn enemies or something.” He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder, half-expecting Levi to have overheard that, knowing his luck. The café was quiet though, and no one was behind the counter. The soft purr of the coffee machines was a calming backdrop to their conversation.

“Eren…” Armin pursed his lips, head tilted when Eren looked back at him in question. “You never told me why he—well, what happened between you the week before.”

He shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m sure you can guess. I called him some choice terms that I really shouldn’t have, and he made that clear. There’s nothing much to it.”

Armin’s gaze was curiously calculating. “I was rather surprised by your apology, I must admit. It’s not like you to forgive so easily, even if you know you’re in the wrong.” He laughed softly, but Eren didn’t quite join in. “So now you’re at least on friendly terms.”

“I suppose?”

“That’s good.” Armin’s manner was curiously brisk. “And the fact that he’s gay isn’t a problem?”

Eren froze, feeling heat rise in his cheeks and ears. He gripped at his coffee mug, hands clumsy. “Hey! I know what you’re trying to do, you mink, turning the conversation away from you! I’m not that dumb, ‘Min!” He poked his finger at his friend in accusation. “We’re not leaving this table today until you tell me what’s been bothering you.” He knew well enough that if Armin truly wasn’t willing to share he wouldn’t, so a little intimidation couldn’t hurt. Besides, they simply didn’t keep secrets from each other for long. They’d never had to do that. They were best friends!

“You’re my best friend,” Armin stated, as if reading Eren’s thoughts. Blue eyes dropped back down to contemplate his cooling tea, as he chewed his bottom lip. His inner conflict was evident in his body language, and Eren started to feel nervous. What could Armin possibly be getting so worried about?

Finally he seemed to come to a resolution – a short intake of breath and subtle bracing of the shoulders – and his gaze lifted to meet Eren’s. “I haven’t wanted to tell you this for a long time because I knew you wouldn’t take it well, but I hate this, not—not being able to share certain things with you, and we’re so close—” He took a deep breath, forcibly collecting himself before he continued babbling. “I trust you though, Eren, and I feel like maybe I might have a chance now to express myself.”

Eren leaned back against his chair, eyes wide. He hadn’t been expecting some confession of this order of magnitude when he’d sat Armin down here. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Armin rubbed his palms over his eyes, sounding winded as though he’d just run a mile. “It’s…well.” His hands clenched the edge of the table so hard his knuckles had gone white. “…It’s Jean.”

Eren waited a moment, holding Armin’s shaking blue gaze, but when no follow-up statement came, he realized he’d somehow missed the punchline.

“Uh. What’s Jean…?” If that asshole was causing problems again, Eren would gladly show him a piece of his mind.

Armin groaned, hiding his face in his hands. “Eren please, you’re not actually this oblivious. It’s Jean, _Jean,_ not Annie, the person I have feelings for, Je-an. Is this clear enough for you now?”

Eren’s heart thudded in his throat.

The blond looked more exasperated than anything right then, but his expression quickly shifted into horror and he made an abortive movement of his hand towards his lips as if he could take back the words.

Eren’s fingers tightened painfully around his untouched coffee mug and the café suddenly felt too small, his sweater constricting his throat. Never had a silence weighed so torturously.

“No…” he breathed finally, spreading his fingers out flat on the table. “No, Armin, no. Don’t do this to me.”

The boy closed his eyes, disappointment furrowing the corners of his mouth, but he said nothing.

“You’re gay,” Eren spat in disbelief, the words feeling like acid on his tongue. He felt sick down to his bones.

Armin threaded his fingers through his hair in a nervous tick. “I’m bisexual.”

Eren gave him a look that clearly read, ‘what the fuck is the difference?’ Bisexual? Like hell he was. Eren’s lip curled into a sneer. That only meant he couldn’t choose a side. Maybe there was still some hope for him, in that case. Eren opened his mouth to voice this thought, but Armin held up a hand.

“I’ve known for a long time, Eren, this isn’t a variable. Please don’t try to speak against my chosen term of identification.”

He sounded like a textbook. Eren looked down into his mug of coffee, rage and disgust welling up inside his throat. He stood up abruptly, a cruel flicker of pleasure licking him at the way Armin flinched from the screech of his chair.

“ _Why?_ ” he snarled, gripping the edge of the table. “Why would you do this?” Armin gazed up at him with his goddamn blue eyes, and Eren couldn’t help raising his voice. “Is this funny to you, somehow, huh? First Mikasa, and then you… To flaunt the one thing I can’t stand in my face every chance you get? I only joined that god-awful GSA because you’re my _best_ friend and I knew it would make you happy. But now I see how it is. You know me, you know everything about my mother and all, and still you…you choose to do this to me. I trusted you! Why should you get to betray me like that?”

Armin stared for a moment, and Eren watched in surprise as the quivering blue of his eyes hardened slowly to a cold ice. He’d never seen such an expression of furious detachment on the boy’s face before.

“Why?” he repeated in a soft voice. “Why. That’s your only question. One day, Eren, you’re going to have to wake up and grow up. Please, please, grow up.” He laughed quietly, and it was the most unsettling thing Eren had ever heard.

“You, my friend, are not the center of your every relationship. You think we’re all doing this because of you? You think Mikasa’s trying to find a partner in Annie because she wants to hurt you? You think the whole GSA was founded just to bother _you?_ I understand where you’re coming from, believe me: I’ve known you for longer than I’ve known myself. But you have to understand, someday, that what you perceive as ‘wrong’ isn’t necessarily the only truth. I can only respect your opinion if you have a valid argument and right now, all you’re doing is pointlessly striking right at the fundamentals of basic human rights on the basis of something you don’t even understand yourself.”

He linked his trembling fingers together under his chin and stared up at Eren with a quiet, compelling force. “I am a person, just like you. You know me, you know Mikasa, and you should know too that our sexuality does not define our character nor should it determine your relationship with us. Can you not just… accept that?”

Armin’s face was red, and his voice faded at the end. He sat deep in his chair with a startled expression as if he couldn’t believe the words he’d just said. Eren certainly couldn’t. Where was that shy boy who needed countless encouragement to speak his mind, always so unsure of his own worth? Under other circumstances, Eren would have felt a burst of pride for Armin finally taking such a strong stance in an argument. However, now his legs only felt weak, and it was all he could do to simply slide back into his chair, defeated.

He couldn’t meet Armin’s eye for the shame that burned in his gut. Because Armin was right, Armin was always right, and Eren was probably the worst friend imaginable. He’d just been internally declaring how he would never let a soul hurt his best friend, and now here he was, the finest example of a hypocrite. He might not agree with all of Armin’s points and he certainly couldn’t change how he felt overnight, but he had try, at least. If only to bring back the soft Armin that he knew.

He took a deep breath, looking up slowly. Armin had tears beading the corners of his eyes and he was staring blankly to the side.

“I’m sorry,” Eren murmured. “I think… I’ll need some time to get used to it. But… well. You’re still you, I guess. Can’t… ah, lose my best bro over something silly like this, right?”

Armin returned his watery smile. “Yes, I understand. Thank you… and… I’m sorry for yelling at you…”

A damp towel suddenly landed in Eren’s face.

“Oi, brats. Don’t mean to be a party-pooper to this little feels fest here, but you’re already five minutes late to class.”

Armin shot up so fast he nearly overturned the table. “What?! No! This’ll be the first time I’m late since _junior high_!”

Eren scrambled out of his seat a moment later, still frazzled by the latest revelations, and a stray hand knocked his half-full coffee cup to the ground. The shatter of ceramic on wood rang loudly in his ears.

“ _Fuck_ …”

Levi’s intense glare on the side of his face made Eren look up in fear. The older boy pointed at the shards. “You’re not leaving here till you clean that up, you incompetent shitstack.”

The words bit into what was left of Eren’s self-esteem, and he discreetly wiped a sleeve over his face. Armin shot Eren a tentatively pleading look, already half-out the café door, and Eren waved him on ahead with a sigh. Better not to drag Armin into more of his shit anyway.

He frowned at the paper towel roll he’d been handed, feeling a hollow space where his stomach was supposed to be that had nothing to do with Levi. “What is it with you? Do you get off on making me slave after your every whim?”

Levi looked unimpressed. “No, my shift just ended so I’m not obliged to clean up this shit, but like hell am I just leaving it here to stink this whole place up.”

Eren sighed, too tired to argue, and wiped up the spilt coffee and the remnants of the mug. He felt a curious camaraderie with those little coffee mug shards in his hands, their function lost forever, broken edges where once there was smooth conformity. As the world tends towards entropy, so will every mug one day shatter, and there was nothing he could do to stop that. Eren blinked, and stuffed the paper towel in the trash bin. “There, happy?”

Levi stared straight at him, his scowl lightening a fraction, and Eren had the odd but distinct impression that Levi was about to say something profoundly important. All he did, however, was shake his head slightly.

“Well, what are you waiting for? I’m not going to write you a late pass.”

Eren glanced at the clock on the wall. “Oh…right. Fuck.” He gathered up his schoolbag and his sweater, giving up on speed because he was so late as it was, there was really no more point in hurrying.

“Oh and, Jaeger?” Eren looked up. “I’ve set all the clocks ten minutes ahead so the fuckers who fall asleep in here won’t be late to class. You’ll still make it now if you run.”

Eren blinked in shock. He threw on his jacket and smiled thankfully at Levi. That was… surprisingly thoughtful. Or maybe it was just so that Levi could finish his shift earlier. Either way, it worked out in his favor.

“Bye Levi, see you Friday!” Eren called out as he shot out the door of the café in a flurry. (He thought maybe he’d seen the other boy reply with a half-hearted wave, but he couldn’t be sure.)

And neither Eren nor Armin were late to their next class, for the record.

 

***

 

 

When Eren came home that evening, he sat down on his bed and mindlessly watched old Star Trek reruns, not really taking anything in and letting the events of the day sink through his subconscious. He sighed, grabbing his phone when he couldn’t take it anymore.

 

 **Eren** 8:53pm, Wed

            << _thank u for telling me all that. I mean it. But srsly……. JEAN????_

 

Armin only sent him an innocent smiley in reply.

 

 


	6. Ailurophile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Make way for Mikaani. Nietzche makes a brief appearance. And Levi and Eren fuck up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the [heterosexual questionnaire](https://www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/gsc/downloads/resources/Heterosexual_Questionnaire.pdf) does not go to me.

 

 

 

Eren, lithe and sinewy as a cat, lounged across the desk and poked Mikasa lightly in the stomach to garner her attention. She was currently perched on the desk beside him, legs crossed politely, warily eyeing Hanji, Erwin, and Levi across the room. Eren stared disbelievingly at his finger; man, Mikasa's stomach was harder than Reiner's, and that shouldn't be physically possible.

 

She looked down at him, dark hair falling across her forehead. "What is it, Eren?" It was a lazy Friday afternoon: half the group had not even shown up yet, and no one was particularly inclined to begin the meeting.

 

"Armin said you have a thing going on with Annie," he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. He hesitated for a moment, and then smiled guilelessly. Armin, who, on Eren’s right, had his nose in a novel, snapped his head up in surprise.

 

"What! No I didn't!?" And he hid behind the cover when Mikasa glared at him.

 

"There's nothing going on with Annie."

 

Eren rolled his eyes. "You go home with her practically every Friday, and she's like the only other person aside from us that you can actually communicate with." Mikasa flicked his forehead with a perfectly manicured finger, and he winced. "Sorry? It's true though!"

 

Mikasa sighed, tucking her nose into her scarf, and turned away from him. Eren saw through her careful defenses though, she was his sister, after all: he knew her as well as the back of his hand. Mikasa was often a hard one to read, but even she had her weaknesses, and right now, he felt her hurt.

 

"Aw, don't make that face, Mika."

 

Armin set down his book with a huff. "You should invite her to the tournament this weekend. That's a bonding thing for all you sporty people, right?"

 

She blinked in confusion. "But she doesn't fence. She wouldn't be interested. She's... not interested."

 

"If it's an excuse to see you decked out in fancy fencing gear and being a total badass, then anyone would love to come. Seriously, how could anyone not be interested? You're amazing, Mika," Eren told her, holding his fingers to his temple in a scout's honor gesture.

 

"Stop calling me that," she chastised, but Eren could see the blush that reddened her smooth cheeks. Mikasa truly was beautiful, and Eren didn't understand why she couldn't see that as well as anyone else.

 

Speak of the devil; Annie entered the classroom just then, tailed by her two boys. She had her usual white hoodie flipped up to hide her face and a dusty schoolbag slung over one slumped shoulder. He could see the glimmer of blue eyes under the shadow of her hood, and quickly looked away to avoid suspicion.

 

"Armin always has good ideas," he prodded, seeing how Mikasa's gaze had followed the other girl’s entrance.

 

She shifted her attention to him again. "But, why are you...? Annie's a girl. You're not going to... make a fuss about that?"

 

Eren closed his eyes and stretched out on the table, having expected this question. “Well, I think your sexual confusion comes from the fact that you’re only friends with us two,” he indicated himself and Armin, “and we’re both boys. So maybe you can’t see other boys in a sexually attractive light because we’ve always been so close, and that’s why you think you’re gay. Like, you’ve never been friends with a girl before, so they’re more interesting to you. Maybe if you become friends with Annie you’ll…figure yourself out.” Besides, he was pretty sure Annie was as straight as a stick, so there would be nothing to worry about. She just kind of gave off that air.

 

He smiled serenely, pleased with his analysis. He also wanted Mikasa to be happy, of course, and maybe expanding her friend pool could help with that. She rarely did things to please herself, and her life revolved mostly around Armin and himself. He knew it wasn’t healthy for her to base her entire happiness on another person. She was a bit of a social recluse by nature, but that wasn’t necessarily entirely by choice. Mikasa was the smartest in the class, beautiful as a statue, and cold as the stone-set of her features: entirely unapproachable by pretty much anyone _.  ‘Heartless bitch’, ‘too good for the likes of us’_ – The phrases that were thrown around pissed him off to inordinate amounts because they didn’t know her like Eren did. Mikasa was soft inside, and she had a heart deeper than words could describe, and she was _good_ in a way that Eren never could be.

 

“I don’t think Mikasa will ever see anyone in a sexually attractive light,” Armin mumbled, flipping open his book again. Eren didn’t know how to interpret that statement, and he missed the pleasantly surprised look Mikasa exchanged with his friend.

 

Hanji’s voice interrupted them from the front of the classroom, asking if everyone had arrived yet. Eren refrained from pointing out that their period had technically started fifteen minutes ago. He straightened up with a groan, not even bothering to get down from his desk, and made brief eye contact with Levi who came up to take a seat in the row before them.

 

“As I’m sure you’re all aware, the details for the autumn fair fundraiser have been finalized, and we now have a date: October 30th! So, that means we get to throw in some Halloween themed things too.” Eren shifted in his seat. Did that mean he’d have to redesign the poster? Because like hell was he working with that bastard _Erwin_ again.

 

“What should we all make?” Krista asked, leaning forward in her chair.

 

Hanji cackled, waving a crumpled sheet in front of them. “I have a list of jobs here!” She slammed it against the cork board on the wall and pinned it there. “But first, we need to welcome a new soldier to our ranks.” She pointed towards the wheelchair and its occupant at the side of the room.

 

Marco laughed lightly, raising his fist to his heart in a mock-salute. “It’s an honor.”

 

“Come, you get to read out all the assigned jobs on this paper, this way, you’ll get to learn everyone’s names, as they learn to associate yours with dread.” Hanji laughed at the slightly taken-aback look on Marco’s face. Eren sympathized, remembering his first time meeting Hanji too. Nevertheless, he nervously wheeled himself over to the paper and frowned at the nearly illegible handwriting scrawled across it.

 

Marco scratched his head. “Um. There’s Eren – oh, Eren, I know him – and Levi… and Ymir?” He glanced over to see who the names corresponded to. “You are on the list for sweet food stuff.” Eren slouched in his seat with a groan, sending an irritated look at the back of Levi’s head. The other boy didn’t turn around, but Eren noticed Ymir instead making gagging motions across the room and he snorted, flipping her off. 

 

“Krista, Sasha, and Connie for selling salty stuff?” Marco continued. Krista waved at him when he turned to look and the other two on the list high-fived each other.

 

Jean, Marco himself, and Armin were set to sell old books from the school library to the younger grades, while Mikasa and Annie were paired to be in charge of the jewelry stand. That mostly entailed making little brightly colored, personalized friendship bracelets for fifth-grade girls, or gay pride ones for those who wanted them.

 

“Oh no,” whispered Mikasa in dismay, hiding behind her scarf. “Why us? I don’t know how to make bracelets, let alone interact with children.” All Annie did was pick at her nails under the desk, not paying the slightest ounce of attention.

 

Reiner and Berthold, and Erwin and Hanji were going to be selling raffle tickets during the days leading up to the fundraiser, so that the winner could be announced on the day itself.

 

“Ooh!” Connie’s attention was perked. “What are the prizes for the raffle?”

 

Erwin held up an envelope, coolly complacent expression in his eyes. “I have two tickets here for a Beethoven-Shostakovich concert at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.” There was a whisper of surprise around the room. Eren could tell that Armin was mentally calculating how much pocket change he had.

 

Hanji let slip a deranged looking grin. “ _I_ have two tickets for Fall Out Boy’s next concert at TD Gardens.” And Eren, among others, did not hesitate to join in on the mental cash calculation.

 

“And I have two tickets for the Barrett’s Haunted Mansion, since it’s Halloween,” Levi chimed in with a tired voice.

 

Well, the raffle tickets will certainly be a success, Eren thought to himself.

 

“Isn’t this kind of counterintuitive though?” Armin murmured to no one in particular. “Those tickets must have cost a fortune each. We’re supposed to be raising money for the Pride Network, we’ll barely make a profit at this rate.”

 

Levi, who had overheard, turned around in his seat with a sour expression. “Here’s a little known fact: Erwin’s father donated a building to this school once, and he’s now got a vested interest in our success. He’s also got a little more money on his hands than he needs. All these damn tickets were paid for by him, so any money we raise will go straight to the foundation.”

 

Armin tapped his fingers against the table. “It’s still an awful lot of money that could have been—”

 

Levi snorted. “Erwin’s father would never donate that kind of money to a pride organization out of his own free will. Believe me; it’s better spent like this. And you’d be surprised how much money a raffle can make when there’s a prize like this at the end.”

 

They spent the next few minutes discussing possible food items each member could bake, a brainstorm session lead by Sasha. It wasn’t long before all pretense of ordered discussion had been abandoned, and it was pretty much just people wildly yelling various names of baked goods across the room. Hanji stepped away from the ruckus and called Eren, Sasha, and Connie around a desk. She spread out a stack of identical papers with a series of questions printed on them.

 

“We’re taking a _test_?” gasped Connie, looking horrified.

 

Hanji grinned knowingly. “Of course not, it’s just a questionnaire that I want you three heteros to take. You’ll get why in a minute.”

 

Eren grabbed one of the sheets, frowning in annoyance. A curious Armin and Mikasa appeared on either side of his shoulders, like an angel and demon. “Wait what does this mean;” he asked of Hanji, “we’re the only three straight people in this club?” He cast a glance at Armin. How could Hanji have known if Eren had only just found out about Armin’s sexuality two days ago himself?

 

“No, just the ones who have explicitly identified as such,” she answered. “It’s not my place to assume anything.”

 

Eren hummed warily, looking back down at the slightly-crumpled paper. Annie, surprisingly, had drifted over too and had picked up one of the spare sheets. “One,” he read out loud, “What do you think caused your heterosexuality?”

 

“That’s easy; I was born this way,” Sasha answered, winking at Eren.

 

Mikasa read out the next one, in her quietly authoritative voice. “Two. When and how did you first decide you were heterosexual?” Eren tugged uncomfortably at the edge of his paper, beginning to catch on to the point of this exercise. His sister nodded at him to answer.

 

“I always have been, because it’s not a choice, it’s only what is natural,” he replied slowly, fiddling with the key on his necklace. No one said anything in response, because Connie had grabbed another sheet and launched into the next question.

 

“Three, is it possible that your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of? Sorry, the way of the homosexual will never be for me, not as long as I got Sasha,” Connie poked his friend in the arm.

 

“Sorry Connie,” she mimicked, “you only come second after food for me, you know that.”

 

Connie crossed his arms behind his head and tipped back in his chair. “Yeah, I’m okay with that!” They laughed together, and Eren rolled his eyes.

 

“Four. Could it be that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?” Armin read out, with tightness to his voice. “Well, Eren, isn’t that ironic. How about you give your answer to Mikasa.”

 

Eren shot him a dark look. “That’s not funny,” he grumbled. The rest of the group had joined the table by now, lured by the growing agglomeration of people around Eren, Sasha, and Connie. Eren skimmed over the rest of the questions, feeling slightly nauseous.

 

“Eight,” someone was reading out, “Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Can’t you just be what you are and keep it quiet?” A laugh. “That’s right, Connie, why can’t you and Sasha just keep it behind closed doors where I don’t have to see it? Like, I don’t have a problem with what you people do in the privacy of your bedroom, as long as no one else has to know.” It was Ymir, and Connie was laughing so hard he couldn’t even formulate a reply to mock-defend himself.

 

“ _God,_ Sasha, why are you even sitting next to him?” Jean chimed in in an exaggerated voice, “Can’t you see there are other people in the room too? Keep it in your pants!”

 

Eren crumpled the page in his fist suddenly and turned around, stalking out of the circle of students to where his bag was. He felt like something was constricting his airways, and he had to lean over and press his palms flat against the desk to breathe in properly again and keep his head from spinning. Hanji was jabbering on about what these kinds of questions which reverse the attitudes queer people are often faced with onto heterosexuals can bring to their perception, but he tuned her out after a moment.

 

Someone leant quietly against the desk near him after a few moments. “Hey.” Eren startled, met Levi’s cool grey eyes for a brief moment, and then stared back down again. “Hit a little too close to home, huh?”

 

Eren shook his head, closing his eyes tightly. “I’m fine,” he bit out angrily.

 

“Didn’t ask if you were,” Levi shot back.

 

Eren sighed and slumped into the nearest chair, leaning his cheek wearily against his arm. Levi stayed silent, waiting for Eren to cool down as he picked methodically at the white cat hairs on his black shirt. Eren watched him quietly, following the repetitive motions with his eyes. Eventually the frustrated heat in his chest abided. 

 

“Kind of figured you’d be a cat person,” he murmured.

 

Levi’s expression softened into something resembling a smile. “Her name’s Nietzche.”

 

Eren lifted his head and bit his thumb to suppress a grin. “You named your cat after a German philosopher? A _male_ German philosopher?”

 

The other boy shrugged, but his eyes lightened in interest. “Didn’t think you would know much about Nietzche.”

 

Eren ducked his head and sniffed. “Well, my mother forbade me to read any of his work and so naturally I did just the opposite… Can’t say I’m exactly _fond_ of his ideologies…”

 

“This the same mother who thinks that key of yours is a cross?”

 

Eren’s hand flew up to grip his necklace, shocked, until he remembered he’d told Levi about his key a few weeks ago. He played with the chain for a moment, eyes unfocused. “I… um. I gotta go… to the bathroom, before we catch the bus…” he mumbled hastily, standing up as he did. Levi’s eyes saw more than they were supposed to. Eren had to get out.

 

He stared at himself in the dull mirror of the men’s room, letting the water run over his fingers and drum soundlessly against the ceramic of the sink.

 

It wasn’t fair, he thought, that the others in the group got to make fun of him like that. He wasn’t queer, he wasn’t a gender anomaly, he was simply there because he had friends in the club and not enough of a social life to do anything else on a Friday night. And yet, he still bore the brunt of all their _jokes_. And _lectures_. He liked Levi well enough, and Hanji too if he were honest with himself, but the patronizing tone they regarded him with rubbed him in all the wrong ways.

 

Why should they get to make fun of him and his values when all he got was fire when he tried to do the same? Sure, maybe he didn’t understand them. But they didn’t understand him either.

 

He bent his head and splashed some of the cool water over his face, then shook out his fringe. 

 

_Except for Levi,_ a tiny voice murmured in the back of his mind. _Levi, who maybe understands too much._

Eren wiped his face with a paper towel, and left the bathroom feeling much more collected.

 

The door to Room 104 was propped open as its occupants slowly cleared out. Eren paused in the doorway, eyes finding Armin and Mikasa’s recognizable figures. Armin was obviously urging Mikasa on to cross the room where a certain other blonde was packing her schoolbag.

 

Eren watched in fond amusement as Mikasa straightened her shirt, squared her shoulders, and crossed to Annie’s desk with all the determination of a soldier marching into battle. She placed her hands on the desk, and though Eren couldn’t hear what was said, he noticed the faintly surprised smile that graced Annie’s thin lips before she ducked her head, a curtain of golden hair hiding her from view. She must have assented to the invitation, because Mikasa hurried back to Armin’s side a few minutes later with a flushed smile and a nod.

 

Eren tucked his hands into his pockets and made his way over to them again, feeling disassociated from their company for the first time that he could remember. He felt as though he’d just witnessed something he wasn’t supposed to be privy to. It made him feel sick.

 

He opened his mouth, about to call to Armin and ask if he was ready to go, to hopefully fall back into their usual routine, but Jean grabbed Armin’s wrist just then and pulled him into his conversation with Marco. Eren overheard Jean asking if Armin wanted to join them for a snack at the café, and he turned away sharply to avoid eye contact with his best friend.

 

“Hey Mikasa, if you want to stay and hang out with Annie and Co. or whatever, go ahead. I kind of feel like walking home today.”

 

Mikasa visibly hesitated, concern budding in the depths of her dark eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Eren, it’s an hour by foot.”

 

“It’s like forty minutes,” he dismissed lightly. “Besides, you were just complaining yesterday that I was getting too fat,” he snickered.

 

His sister huffed. “I merely suggested that you should lay off on the desserts for a bit. You know how your mother spoils you.”

 

“She’s _your_ mother too,” Eren retorted, sticking out his tongue. Their usual banter felt somewhat forced, but Mikasa didn’t appear to notice. “Whatever, I’m off. Tell Armin to call me if he wants to meet up this weekend.”

 

Mikasa frowned, reaching for his sleeve. “You’re not going to—”

 

“ _Bye_ , Mikasa.” Eren grabbed his bag and trotted out, waving a cheery farewell to Hanji as he passed.

 

Alright, Eren could tell when he was being a shitty friend. And currently, his presence and everything he represented was holding his two best friends from making new, meaningful relationships. It wasn’t like Eren was giving up. There would always be hope that they’d change their minds about the whole homosexuality thing, but even he could see that direct opposition was only going to cause more rifts in their friendship. It was best if he just removed himself from their company for the time being.

 

The sky was already darkening as Eren shifted his bag on his shoulder and took off down the road, welcoming the cool promise of approaching winter against his skin, the faint bite in the wind. It was still only October, but New England winters came early, and often unpredictably. It wouldn’t be long now before the last remnants of summer fled for the year.

 

He sighed, tightening the coat around his frame, and digging his hands deeper into his pockets. It felt good just to walk calmly along the road, and to let his mind wander aimlessly. Sometimes it felt like there were too many thoughts in his head, crashing together in too-confined a space, burning him up from the inside like a nuclear reactor. It was why he felt so angry all the time.

 

A black car passed him by in a whoosh of air, then halted sharply a few meters ahead. Eren blinked, recognized it a moment later, and hurried to the open window.

 

“What, you again?” Levi greeted, looking bemused. “Do your friends make a habit of just ditching you on the side of the road?”

 

Eren laughed. “Ah, that’s right.” He opened the passenger side door without being invited, sliding smoothly into the seat. Levi’s expertly raised eyebrow could probably set a Guinness record. “I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me,” Eren sang ruefully, shrinking down a bit in case Levi decided to physically kick him out.

 

The older boy just snorted, shaking his head, and pulled back into the lane.  “Queen, huh? Didn’t see that one coming.”

 

Eren rolled his eyes, clipping in his seatbelt. “I can appreciate a good song you know, independent of the singer.”

 

Levi took a turn at the end of the road, heading in the direction of Eren’s house without being asked. “If you wanted to ride in my car, you could have just asked,” he smirked, noticing how Eren ran his finger lightly over the dashboard.

 

Eren hummed distractedly, sinking deeper into the leather seat. “Shut up, your car’s comfy.”

 

“You want to ride in my car… because it’s comfy?” Levi was blatantly mocking him, and Eren scowled.

 

“It has heated seats, okay.”

 

Levi turned to stare at him in sneering incredulity. There was an awkward pause, as Levi slowed down at a red light, and drove right through it. Then, “You’re so gay, sometimes it hurts to listen to you.”

 

Eren stiffened up like he’d suddenly been diagnosed with tetanus, breath catching painfully in his throat. He felt trapped in the metallic confines of the car.

 

“I’m not gay.” His voice sounded raw and strangled, foreign to his ears.

 

Levi didn’t seem to notice, eyes still on the road. “Yeah, you totally are. What about that friend of yours, the one with the coconut hair? That was a pretty intense conversation you had the other day, did he confess his feelings for you or something?”

 

Eren clutched at his seat, feeling fury crawl up his throat, viscous and choking like fear. “Are you fucking _insane!?_ That was a private conversation!”

 

Levi side-eyed him mildly. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, brat. Maybe you should work on keeping your voice down during these ‘private conversations’.”

 

“Shut up!” Eren snarled, knuckles white against the upholstery. “Just shut the fuck up, I don’t give a fuck about what you have to say!”

 

Levi frowned at Eren’s flying spittle. “Calm down Eren, it was just a joke. Alright, you’re not gay; Armin is just a platonic friend, whatever.” Levi rolled his eyes.

 

“No, I’m _not_ gay!” Eren repeated in a broken hiss. He yanked furiously at the seatbelt for lack of anything else to hold on to, eyes burning. His fists trembled as he continued. “I’m not gay, you can’t fucking say that to me, you don’t… You don’t know anything… I’m not…” he gasped, nearly breaking the skin of his own palms with his fingernails.

 

Levi blinked at him with wide eyes, but Eren turned away from him and pressed his face against the window.

 

“Jesus, Eren, okay. Forget it.” Levi’s voice had lost its derisive tonality, back to that softness that had calmed him down earlier, but Eren was shaking too hard now to let it have an effect. He stared out the window silently, trying valiantly to will the tears away. _Fuck, not in front of Levi, not in front of Levi…_

 

“Are you _crying?_ ”

 

Goddammit.

 

“Leave me alone,” Eren mumbled quietly against the cool glass, and to his surprise, Levi uttered not a further word. The air was thick between them for the rest of the agonizingly long drive home.

 

Eren opened the door heavily when the car finally slid to a stop outside his house. “Thank you for the ride,” he said mechanically, shoving his backpack out the door.

 

Levi sounded almost guilty. “Hey Jaeger… buck up. I’m sorry for pushing you.”

 

Eren stopped, half out of the car with his back towards Levi, and didn’t even try to decipher what that tone of voice could mean. “It’s not just that. You… you wouldn’t understand.” He stepped the rest of the way out of the car, eyes cast down.

 

Levi seemed to hesitate, as if about to call the other boy back to talk, but he didn’t resist when Eren made to close the door. “Sure. See you next week.”

 

Eren didn’t wait to see if Levi would drive off. He ran up the stairs to his front door, fishing out his keys with clumsy fingers. He stifled a sob, seeing a few strands of white cat hairs on his sweater, and stumbled his way inside an empty house.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We had progress last chapter... now not so much? What are your theories? I want to hear what you guys think is going on with Eren.


	7. Sow the Seeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of last Friday's disastrous car ride. The GSA fundraiser finally takes place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~I wrote the preliminary draft for this chapter in March of last year (yeah I’ve been working on this for a while…) when Flappy Bird was the big thing, so I’m sorry I’m kind of behind the times with this now. Oops.~~
> 
> Also, I'd like to thank you guys for your comments last chapter. I was genuinely crying when I read your theories the next morning, they’re all fabulous and many of you are so close to the truth, I’m just overwhelmed by your investment. I’m sorry I get so emotional about this, but this fic is very close to my heart. Thank you.

 

Monday afternoon found Eren waiting for his sister in front of the girl’s bathroom during lunch break, calmly playing Flappy Bird on his phone. Key word: calmly.

_“Fuck you!_ I didn’t even touch the fucking pipe, what the hell is your problem?!” Eren glared furiously at the screen of his phone, which was cheerily displaying the words _‘Game Over’_ in a perky orange font. Why did this game exist if it was impossible to win? Why were there even pipes hanging from the sky? Why did the fucking bird constantly have that fucking smug expression in its eye? _Why was he even playing this?_

So many unanswered questions. Eren should start a help blog.         

“I don’t think the poor thing is going to start pitying you no matter how much you threaten it,” said a low voice from behind him, and Eren definitely did not let out an embarrassingly high-pitched squeal and drop his phone so suddenly that the battery went flying out, skidding away under the water fountain.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ, you scared the shit out of me!”

“Then do you need a tissue to wipe yourself? The bathroom is right there.”

It took Eren a full thirty seconds of staring blankly into Levi’s grey eyes to figure that one out, but when he did he nearly choked on his own snort. Embarrassed, he bent down to pick up the various parts of his phone and pieced them together again. Seriously, how was this guy supposed to be a senior? Eren would never understand.

“What’re you doing here?” Levi asked placidly once Eren was facing him again.

And that set him off. “I’m waiting for Mikasa to finish putting on her damn make-up or whatever it is that she’s doing in there. It’s really quite utterly pointless, you know, because she looks like a holy goddess no matter what time of day it is, even when it’s six in the morning and she’s horribly hungover. Take it from me because I’ve actually seen this incredible feat of nature. You know it could probably go into a book of world records or something; believe it or not but there was not even a single frizzy hair out of place. And so I really don’t understand what her problem is because she’s taking for-fucking-ever.”

Levi raised a fine eyebrow at the word vomit. “Wow.”

“She’s eating into my lunch break,” he explained with a wry smile. Okay. This was going to get awkward in a moment after what had happened in Levi’s car the Friday before, so Eren elected to continue talking to prolong the false sense of normality. “And what about you? Where are Hanji and Erwin?”

Levi sighed. “You know, we’re not actually joined at the hip. I don’t understand why everyone seems so surprised to see one of us alone.”

“Well, you do usually eat lunch with them,” Eren pointed out.

“And you would know this how exactly?”

Oh shit, maybe Levi had noticed Eren’s habit of silently observing the three of them every lunch, half-hoping he would see Erwin make another attempt to kiss Levi just so he’d have an excuse to get pissed. Eren tilted his chin up, refusing to let Levi get to him, whether it was intentional or not. “Because I’m your creepy stalker and I know everything about you and your weird habits?”

Levi’s lip curved up and something sinister flashed in his eyes. “You know nothing about me, brat, don’t even try.”

An age-old line, yet the tone of Levi’s voice still managed to send a weird shiver down Eren’s spine. He huffed and looked down, turning his phone back on to check that it was still working after he’d shattered its guts on the floor. “Well anyway, I take it back: if anyone’s the stalker, then it’s you. I literally never saw your face all of last year until I joined your stupid club, and now I see you cropping up everywhere I go.” Levi looked mildly amused. “You’re like a _weed_.”

And that amusement turned swiftly to disbelief and the beginning of Levi’s trademark glare. “What did you just call me?”

“A weed?”

“A weed.”

“Uh huh.” Eren nodded sagely. “Short, deceptive, and entirely unwelcome wherever it goes.”

Eren mentally prepared for his own painful death, but strangely enough, Levi just stared at him with a blank expression for a very long moment and then turned his face away, palm covering his mouth to stop his laughter from spilling out. Eren thought maybe he’d already died and gone to Heaven because this couldn’t actually be happening. Levi laughing at something Eren had said? Preposterous.

“I can’t… decide if that’s the best or the absolute worst insult I have ever received,” Levi managed to say after a moment with a semblance of his usual apathy, though his mouth still twitched up at the corners.

Eren sniffed but he was grinning too, half-turning his body away so hopefully Levi wouldn’t notice. There was a lightness in Levi’s eyes that Eren had never seen there before, and it made him feel oddly giddy inside. In fact, he had to tuck his fingers into his jean pockets to stop them from trembling. They stood there in contemplative quiet, until it was impossible to ignore the elephant in the room any longer.

“Listen… about last time…” Eren began, ducking his head so his fringe covered his eyes. Red stained his cheeks when he imagined how stupid he must have looked, unable to hold back tears because of a simple name-calling. “You probably thought that was a huge overreaction.”

“Well, you’ve evidently got something else going on that I’m not aware of, so we’ll leave it at that. I’m not judging you for anything,” Levi coughed, and hastily added, “brat.”

Eren shuffled his feet awkwardly. “It’s not something I’ve shared with anyone other than Mikasa or Armin.”

Levi was giving him one of those funny looks again, as if he were consciously guarding himself. “Okay…?”

Eren bit his lip. Of course, Levi couldn’t give half a shit about any of Eren’s problems, who was he kidding. They were barely even friends. He recalled his conversation with Armin and rectified that statement. No, they were definitely not friends. “Never mind. I’m sorry.”

Levi brusquely snatched Eren’s phone out of his loose grip and slid it open with deft fingers.

“That’s _my_ phone.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that fact,” snorted the other, rolling his eyes as his fingers tapped over the screen.

Eren tugged at his key nervously until Levi straightened from his slump against the wall and rolled one shoulder, tossing the cellphone back in Eren’s direction. He nearly didn’t catch it.

“There, now you can call or text me whenever you grow the balls to talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you. I have places to be now, so au revoir.” Levi raised a hand with a faint smile and turned away, hands tucked back into his pockets.

Eren blinked, thrown off by Levi’s abrupt departure, and glanced down at his phone. Sure enough, there was a new number listed in his contacts under the name of _‘Cannabis.’_

He sagged against the wall in an uncontrollable fit of laughter, trying to come to terms with the knowledge that Levi was actually a massive dork under his callous exterior. “Not _that_ kind of weed, Levi!” Eren yelled after him, but the other boy was already out of earshot. He was still laughing to himself when Mikasa finally emerged from the restroom.

 

 

 

**You** 23:21, Mon

            **_> >_ **_hey? It’s me :)_

Eren had texted him that night, the shiny new name in his contact list taunting him. His phone vibrated in his hand within a minute of him sending the text.

**Cannabis** 23:22, Mon

**_< <_ ** _Hello._

Eren snorted at the name but felt a strange nervousness in his stomach at the rapidity of Levi’s reply.

 

            **_> > _**_this better not have been some kind of underhanded ploy to get my number cx [23:23]_

_**< <** Don’t flatter yourself. If I had wanted your number, I could have just looked it up in the school directory. [22:24]_

Well that’s what he got for trying to be funny.

**_> >_ ** _shut up, you make me sound conceited [23:24]_

**_< < _ ** _Ooh that’s a big word Jaeger; sure you know what it means? [23:25]_

Eren grinned at his phone, surprisingly not irritated by the taunt. Levi had developed the unique skill of throwing him off his game without necessarily pissing him off.

**_> >_ ** _yeah, I just looked in the dictionary and your face was the first entry [23:26]_

**_< <_ ** _Damn, if only you showed this side of you in normal conversation, I might actually think you don’t have shit for brains. [23:27]_

Eren laughed to himself and dropped his phone on his quilt, heading into the bathroom to take a shower, partly to avoid having to come up with a smart reply on the spot. It wouldn’t do to break Levi’s expectations after he’d only just built them up, right?

When he returned, twenty minutes later, there was a new message blinking on his phone.

**_< <_ ** _You had something you wanted to tell me? [23:38]_

**_> >_ ** _I do, but im not sure im ready yet [23:51]_

He waited for a reply, but there was none.

**_> >_ ** _I dnt really know you very well and this is slightly personal… maybe one day… [23:56]_

**_< < _ ** _Mhm that’s fair enough. But you’re basically saying I gave you my number for nothing. [23:58]_

**_> > _ ** _Not nothing! [23:58]_

Eren hesitated a moment, remembering his thoughts from that afternoon, but then decided to add:

**_> > _ ** _We’re friends, aren’t we? [23:59]_

**_< < _ ** _Keep dreaming, brat. [00:00]_

And maybe that was a yes in Levi-language.

Eren woke up the next morning with a crick in his neck and a cramped hand, and Levi’s **_< < _**_… Oi brat. Did you fucking fall asleep on me? [2:19]_ staring him in the face.

 

 

 

Things were different after that. Eren still only saw Levi during the weekly GSA meetings, (not counting Eren’s tendency to stalk Levi’s friend group at lunch), but the atmosphere was certainly lighter between them. He wondered sometimes how their relationship had shifted from Levi sucker-punching Eren in the face to pleasant attitudes (by Levi’s standards) and near-constant texts. It was easier to talk to Levi, he discovered, when it was through the electronic shield of his cellphone than when they were sitting face-to-face. It made it seem… less real, perhaps.

 

**You** 8: 46, Thurs **> > **_leviii why aren’t you in my grade? I’m all alone in Econ today_

**_> > _ ** _well there’s horseface but he doesn’t count he’s stupid [8:47]_

**_> > _ ** _fuck me now idk why he insisted on being my partner [8:55]_

**Cannabis** 8:56, Thurs **_< < _**_I’m in class, dickface. [8:56]_

**_> > _ ** _omfg I’m going to punch him in the throat if he makes another stupid ass comment [9:01]_

**_> > _ ** _pls remind me to reconsider my friend choices[9:02]_

**_> > _ ** _bc something seriously went wrong here [9:02]_

**_> > _ ** _not u tho haha [9:02]_

**_> > _ ** _I just got yelled at for texting in class lol [9:05]_

**_< < _ ** _Eren shut up, I will block your number. [9:06]_

**_> >_ ** _... aaand I just got kicked out of the room for blowing my shit in front of everyone [9:13]_

**_> > _ ** _It’s not my fault I was stuck with the world’s greatest idiot tho [9:13]_

**_> > _ ** _c’mon back me up here? [9:16]_

**_< < _ ** _You’re like the Hulk. Just without the “Incredible.” [9:17]_

**_> > _ ** _ja well we already established you’re a weed so I’ve definitely got the better deal here! [9:18]_

**_< < _ ** _At least I’m not a fictional character. [9:18]_

**_< < _ ** _Now piss off, I have work to do. [9:18]_

And he must have turned his phone off after that because none of Eren’s further indignant texts went through.

 

 

 

It was only a few days later that they came upon the Friday of the GSA fundraiser. It went by with a lot less fanfare than Eren had expected it would, considering the buildup of the last few weeks. But maybe Eren was just too hard to impress.

The turnout, however, was quite remarkable. Nearly the entire school appeared in the courtyard, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and Eren’s baked-good stand was a popular attraction among all ages. Hanji congratulated him specifically for designing the poster that, quote, “brings all the boys to the yard.”

 

Mikasa pressed a colorful armband into Eren’s palm as she was setting up her own stand. He examined the black and white stripes, the printed word ‘Ally’ on the side.

“I have to wear this?”

“Everyone in the GSA has one.” She cracked her knuckles, looking slightly apprehensive. Eren sympathized. She really didn’t know how to deal with kids; this was going to be a strenuous two hours.

He huffed, but slipped the armband on without a fuss to save her the headache. Hers was an unfamiliar combination of white, grey, and purple, so he pointed at it accusingly. “What does that mean? Shouldn’t it be a rainbow?”

Mikasa shrugged, glanced away uncomfortably and slid her hand into her jacket pocket without answering. Not like Eren cared. He eyed her table, covered with an array of at least six differently colored armbands. Honestly, labels were irrelevant. Labels give a name to an immaterial concept such that it appears to exist in the language. And as soon as you give a name to something, it becomes defined in reality.

He eyed Marco’s pale pink and blue armband as the brunet stopped by to steal one of Eren’s cupcakes half an hour later. Call someone “transgender,” for example, let them define themselves as such, and it becomes real to them and everyone else. When really, all it is is a girl trying to fit into a boy’s body, or vice versa… and that doesn’t mean it’s a legitimate identity.

Or so he reasoned, at least.

Staring at Ymir’s and Levi’s matching rainbow armbands as the three of them handed out pastries did somehow make it feel a hell of a lot more real. It was hard to correlate the Levi he _knew_ with everything that he knew Levi _should be._ It was easy to forget, when they spoke, that they really had no business being friends at all.

“Oi brat. What are you staring at like a dead fish for? There’s a line of people waiting here; make yourself useful.”

 

Krista showed up at one point too, and Eren wondered why no one but his own table appeared to be sticking to their designated roles.

“Cupcake?” Ymir offered, splitting another one of Eren’s products-of-hard-labor in two and wolfing down one half. She pressed the other one to Krista’s lips, who wrinkled her nose and refused to take the bait.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Eren complained, trapped between a lanky Ymir and the wall of the school building they’d set their stand against.

“What thing?”

“The thing where you incessantly flaunt your sexuality in my face.” He pointed to his armband with a flamboyant gesture. “This, this is a label I’m being forced to wear, it doesn’t mean anything okay? I don’t like your… ugh.” He waved his hand between the two of them. “Just please, don’t do it in front of me.” Really, it was time he stood up for himself.

Ymir blinked, still holding the cupcake in one hand. “Okay, but there’s nothing inherently gay or sexual about giving someone half a cupcake.”

Eren rolled his eyes, which was a grave mistake because she then grabbed his chin and pulled him close, their faces inches apart. She took advantage of his surprised gasp to stuff the cupcake into his mouth, effectively choking off his air supply, and then swiped a finger of icing onto the tip of his nose. He spluttered past the mouthful and tried to swallow and breathe at the same time, failing at both.

“See? Just a friendly thing.” She shrugged one shoulder in apparent nonchalance, but the shit-eating grin on her face gave her away.

Eren rubbed the icing off his nose angrily and sucked on his finger, tasting hazelnut and chocolate. “If I had a nut allergy, you could have just killed me,” he said moodily. He realized his innuendo too late, but either Ymir didn’t pick up on it (unlikely) or she’d actually taken his earlier outburst to heart.

A raised eyebrow was all he got. “ _Do_ you have a nut allergy?”

“Well, no.”

Krista stepped forward, her expression that of complete seriousness, and grabbed Eren’s hands in both of hers. “Eren. Do not _ever_ let her know your physical weaknesses. She will find them, exploit them, and not hesitate to _destroy you._ ”

Eren caught the twinkle of amusement in her blue gaze. He held onto her hands tightly and let out an exaggerated gasp. “No! Tell me.”

Krista’s face became a mask of tragedy. “She discovered my allergy to apples last year, and now she carries a deadly supply around with her for whenever she doesn’t want me to kiss her.”

Eren swallowed his discomfort, because until this moment he’d not been entirely sure which level of non-platonic their relationship was. “How dreadful.”

“Terribly dreadful indeed,” Ymir chimed in with mock sincerity, stealing Eren’s last cupcake.

On the other side of the table, Levi slammed the cash box closed, loud enough to make them all jump. He had a disturbed set to his eyebrows. “You guys are _really fucking weird_. Get off my table.”

“Taking it as a compliment,” Krista replied with a laugh, then released Eren’s hands and trotted back to her own stand with Sasha and Connie.

 

“…Do you _actually_ carry apples around with you?” Eren stage-whispered to Ymir a few minutes later. She smirked, kicked open her bag and pointed to the two loosely wrapped spheres that spilled out. Eren pursed his lips and nodded, not sure whether to be frightened or impressed.

Levi leaned into Eren’s line of vision while Ymir was busy with a student, twirling a finger beside his temple to indicate his opinion on Ymir’s mental stability, and Eren failed to stifle his laughter.

 

Who ended up winning the raffle tickets?

Who else but Sasha and Connie (for the concert tickets, at least, since Eren didn’t know the kids who won the symphony and haunted house ones). Armin complained that it wasn’t fair that members of the GSA itself got to profit from their own charity work, but Eren shut him up with, “would you still be saying that if it had been _you_ who’d won the tickets to the orchestra?”

It definitely was unfair for another reason though: the two troublemakers had done the least amount of work out of all of them. Even Eren himself had suffered an entire evening at Jean’s house to bake his damn cupcakes so his mother wouldn’t ask what they were for, and all Connie had brought was a bag of chips. _Chips_ , to go with Sasha’s bowl of salsa and guacamole. Really?

 

All in all, they raised more than a good eight-hundred dollars, and that, if nothing else, was definitely a success.

 

 

 

The month of November passed by in a wild flurry of shitty weather, Thanksgiving dinner, upcoming mid-term exams, and Levi driving Eren home every Friday night. It wasn’t like things were suddenly fine. Eren couldn’t possibly balance a lifetime of chauvinistic thought-patterns with this new existence surrounded by an almost entirely non-heterosexual friend group without snapping every so often.

He initiated another argument with Armin about the latter’s attraction to Jean that left them each with a bad taste in their mouth. He felt that swoop of disappointment like when he’d fucked up a conversation on the Sims and each character walked away with an angry red moodlet floating over their head. As inappropriate as that comparison might be, at least it made Armin laugh when Eren sheepishly pointed it out.

 

 

 

“So what exactly is your problem?” 

“Well, it’s kind of disgusting.”

“So is shitting, but you do that every day,” Levi retorted without a second’s hesitation.

Eren forced his smile away because that really wasn't an appropriate reaction at the moment, but whenever Levi made poop jokes it never failed to crack him up. “Yes, but this is different. It's _wrong._ If God meant for a man to be with a man, or a woman with a woman, why did He only create one man for one woman? That's just the way of things.”

Levi tutted, glancing out of Eren's window and taking a right. “So loving someone is ‘wrong’? Just because they don't fit your single minded idea of what a family should be, that kind of love should be punished?” Levi met Eren’s eyes briefly. “Besides, you can’t take the Bible’s word as gospel, kid. The Bible also states that women should have no rights other than to silently and obediently serve their husbands, yet we’ve moved on from that era of thought _for good reason_.”

 Eren scowled. He didn’t like using religion as an argument, not when it felt like he was just emptily repeating other people’s words, but Levi was backing him into a corner. “It's not love if you're bringing them into sin with you.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “You really believe that?” When Eren didn't answer, he sighed. “Look at Annie and Mikasa. She's your own sister, for Christ’s sake. Look at Ymir and Krista. Do you doubt that they love each other?”

Eren shifted uncomfortably in his seat and rubbed his temple. “No... I mean, I don't— I can't answer that. All I know is...” He trailed off, but then decided to go down a different track. “Look, you're a scientist too; you know as well as I do that a homosexual relation doesn't bear children. It’s… it’s unnatural! How are we supposed to support the human race—”

“Please don't call yourself a scientist and then spew that shit at me.”

Eren clenched his fists in his lap. “It's not like I— I don't even really believe in God, alright? It's just what I've been taught. Stop trying to...to... twist my words around to mean things I never said. This is what I can't stand; all you people trying to push your way of thinking on us.”

Levi was watching him carefully out of the corner of his eye. “Push ourselves on you? I'm trying to get you to _think,_ brat.”

Eren stared out the window, unnervingly aware of Levi’s dark gaze on him. “Can we please stop talking about this? I don't want to end my Friday on a bad note.”

Levi chuckled slightly, defeated. “Yeah alright, fair enough. What are your plans for this weekend?”

Eren brightened considerably, latching happily onto the subject change.

 

 

 

There wasn’t any real respite though. Levi didn’t broach the subject again, at least not as directly, but some of Eren’s other friends had less tact.

“Some people are gay, Eren; deal with it.” Jean looked increasingly irritated as their conversation rolled on, heading quickly towards disaster.

“Yes well, some people don't _like_ gay people; deal with it.”

The two-tone haired boy hit his forehead against the edge of his desk in exasperation. “Can you _please_ just stop?”

Eren wasn’t about to give up that easily. “You asked for it, you chose to be this way.”

“I chose.” Jean blinked at him. “Yes, I chose to be gay because I just _love_ to be discriminated against and criticized by a huge chunk of the population. Listen to yourself, idiot.”

“Everything is a choice.”

“Being homophobic? Yeah, that’s a choice. Being attracted to someone because you’re just genuinely attracted to them for whatever the reason, regardless of their gender? No, that’s not.”

“But you _can_ choose who you’re attracted to, and you can change your mi—”

“No no, that’s it, I’m not even going to debate this any longer. I think you need to add some Lady Gaga to your iTunes list, and leave it at that. Go bother someone else!”

Eren scowled.

 

 

 

Nevertheless, when he overheard Jean telling Connie with a bright, nervous smile that Marco had officially asked him out yesterday and that their first date was that evening, Eren didn’t have it in him to ruin that happy look on Jean’s face. It was weird. He’d never seen Jean act to awkwardly and fluttery before, not even around Mikasa when he’d had that fleeting but intense crush on her hair ( _that,_ that had also been weird). And Marco was… well, Marco. He didn’t have a bad bone in his body. Eren had cheated off of Marco’s paper in Economics once, and the boy had been more ecstatic about Eren’s nearly-perfect score than Eren himself when they’d gotten their exams back. The guilt had pushed Eren to confess, but all Marco did was smile sympathetically and offer his tutoring services. Seriously?

 

 

Things weren’t fine. But they were different.

 

 

“So Eren. You know what tomorrow is, right?”

Eren blinked, setting down his pen as he glanced at his best friend in confusion. “Friday?”

They were in Biology class; he, Armin, and Mikasa. It was one of the only classes that all three of them shared. Armin was good at everything but his strengths lay primarily in the languages and humanities, while Mikasa was a math and physics genius. Eren was pretty much average across the board, but the one class he did excel at was biology, which was why their level was equal.

“Yeah, but it’s not just any Friday,” Armin continued, flipping to a new page in his notebook.

Eren wracked his brains, trying valiantly to remember if there was any particular event he had missed. “Um… Nope, you’ve lost me. Did we have plans? Did I forget someone’s birthday again?”

Armin chuckled under his breath; that dark sound disguised as mirth that Eren had learned to dread. He shot Armin an alarmed look. “And there you were, telling me you’d be counting down the days…” the blond murmured, half to himself.

Eren was honestly frightened now. “What is it?” he whined, elbowing him in the side. Armin bent over his paper, dutifully scribbling down notes, and laughed silently like the cruel child he was. Eren glanced over at Mikasa for help, but she was pointedly ignoring them both.

“Armin!” he hissed.

Ms. Brzenska cleared her throat emphatically at the head of the classroom, and Eren shrank away from her icy gaze. Crap, the lady hated him enough as it was, without labeling him a noisy brat. Armin smiled apologetically and evidently decided to take pity on him.

“You don’t remember our deal? Tomorrow is your last class with the GSA.”

Eren stiffened in surprise. Today was… Today was November 26th. Tomorrow would be the last Friday of the month. Holy shit. He had, indeed, completely forgotten.

His brain blanked out for an uncomfortably long minute, and Armin poked him in the ribs expectantly.

He was forced to do some rapid mental calculation. His two months were up, and he’d barely noticed them fly by. Did Eren honestly enjoy his time in the GSA? Outwardly, no. He consistently felt like he was missing important things, lost in the terms and concepts that the other seemed so familiar with, and that made him angry. He would then get angry when people tried explaining things to him because it made him feel stupid, and then he would get angry at himself for being angry for no good reason. It was a pointless circle of frustration.

But for all his griping about the overarching goals and themes of the club, it was really the people there that made it worth his time.

Eren got along fabulously well with every person in the club (aside from Erwin perhaps, the bastard). In his old school in the tiny village of Shiganshina, Eren had had a grand total of two friends, and one of them was his sister and the other was a social recluse, so they’d initially stuck together out of necessity. (It was a stroke of luck that they’d ended up forging a friendship that was still iron-strong nearly a decade later.)

Eren’s temper had been both violent and volatile as a child, and he’d only become marginally more adept at controlling himself as he aged, a predisposition which tended to keep potential friends at bay. With his father still living with the family back then, relations at home were tense, and they weren’t any smoother at school, so Eren had never really entered the social sphere.

Well… He’d had _one_ other friend, he remembered suddenly, and his throat clamped up as panic laced the inside of his gut. One other friend, and that relationship had ended in disaster.

Coming to Trost High for freshman year was, well, a fresh slate. Here he’d become immersed in a city life instead of a tiny rural one, with a whole new cast of people who knew nothing of his past, and a chance to repaint the canvas of his character.

Trost offered him a better home than Shiganshina could ever have become again after all the bad memories that had infested the place. And so much of his life this year had now been tied to his experience with the GSA and its members, it almost felt as though he’d found more than just a new friend group here, but more of a _family._

Eren glanced up at Armin, who’d been watching him silently as these thoughts ran through his mind. Eren found himself wondering, oddly enough, what on earth he would tell Levi if he did decide to quit.

“You’ll be continuing, right?” he replied eventually in a hushed voice.

Surprisingly, it was Mikasa who answered. “ _I_ will. But you’re not obliged to follow me.” Eren blinked at her. A few months ago, her answer would have been _‘I will if you will.’_

Armin nodded too. “This is your choice though, Eren. You upheld your part of the deal. You don’t owe us anything.”

Eren sorted briefly through his emotions. Did he honestly _not_ enjoy his time in the GSA, either? He still felt uncomfortable nine times out of ten, but he certainly did not feel like he didn’t _belong_. And that was the first time he’d ever felt such a thing.

“I think…” He dropped his gaze to his notes and smiled faintly. “I think the fact that I completely forgot we even _had_ a deal going… speaks for itself.”

He glanced up just quickly enough to catch the victorious expression his two friends exchanged. He coughed slightly, to halt the grin that was tugging at his lips. “But!” he felt obliged to add, “It’s not because any of my principles have changed. It’s purely for the social aspect.”

“We know,” Armin chuckled with an affectionate eye-roll. “We didn’t expect anything more.”

This time, Ms. Brzenska kicked all three of them out of the classroom for disrupting the lesson.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this is kind of a filler chapter, but hey, at least we’ve finally got the ereri train out of the station?
> 
> I think you guys will like the next chapter. Either that, or hate me for it. I’m not a good judge of these things.


	8. Deterministic Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The obligatory gay bar chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update within a week? Exam seasons should come around more often, they’re the only times in the year that I am incredibly productive when it comes to writing. 
> 
>  
> 
> This is the longest chapter yet, but I couldn’t bear to chop it up, so hold onto your seats. Some of you saw this coming though, I think.

 

 

 

Eren tipped back on his chair, locking his feet around the legs of his desk to secure himself. “Hey Armin, are you going to submit yours?”

Today they had spent the entire GSA meeting drawing pictures. In other words, they were supposed to be designing a mascot or emblem for the group to use on future projects – per Hanji’s request, since Eren’s initial unicorn design from the fundraiser posters was pretty cool, but didn’t have unanimous support. They were each supposed to design something this class and then put it to vote, “because we live in a democracy, right guys?” (Hanji would probably make a good kindergarten teacher one day. Actually no, scratch that. They’d probably end up being a public safety threat instead. Eren would never trust his kids in a room alone with Hanji, were he to ever have any.)

“No way. You know I can’t draw. What are you submitting?”

Eren shrugged, leaning back further in his chair. “The old one? I can’t be bothered to come up with anything new. Hanji’s already commissioned me to paint a full-scale thing of the one that wins, so I don’t really want to draw my own design anyway.”

Jean, who was seated next to Armin, shot him an irritated look. “How about you get down from your high horse, it’s not like you’re even that great.” Jean’s drawing looked to be about second grade level, for the record.

“Look who’s talking about high horses? Jean you walked right into that one.”

Jean’s eyebrows furrowed, and Eren watched as his jaw set moodily. He looked like a raging stallion chomping at the bit. Jesus, he’d never get tired of this comparison.

While Eren was too busy laughing to himself to notice his surroundings, Jean stretched a foot out under his own desk and nudged Eren’s chair leg just enough to make it tip off-balance and topple backwards in a chaotic crash. Eren’s vision nearly blacked out as the back of his head hit the ground, hard, and he lay there in stunned disbelief for a moment, legs sticking up straight up in the air. All he could hear was Jean’s snorting laugh as he grabbed his stuff and fled to the other side of the room where Marco would offer shelter.

“—in a minute, let me just…” Levi’s voice floated over to him as he approached. “…Eren?”

The boy sighed, and thudded his head against the ground again. _Impeccable timing to make a fool out of me, thank you horseface._ He opened his eyes and blinked up at Levi, who was leaning over the desk with a raised eyebrow. Erwin stood behind him, looking cool as a cucumber and just as dick-like as the phallic comparison seemed to evoke. Eren wondered if acute embarrassment counted as a medical emergency.  

“Yes?” He didn’t even bother trying to stand up.

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m heading over to Erwin’s with Hanji, so I can’t drive you home. We’re heading to a club later tonight. You’re welcome to join, though.”

_‘Welcome’ to join?_ Not with Erwin in that group. Eren slid rather ungainly out of his chair so they were no longer speaking to his ass, avoiding an answer.

“It’s a last-Friday-of-the-month tradition,” Levi added.

“What kind of club?” Eren sighed. Just his luck that the one and only time he’d ever be asked to a club would feature him lying in a heap on the floor like the complete loser that he was. He stood up heavily and righted his chair, running a hand through his mussed hair and trying to fix his clothes. Maybe if he dumped Erwin on the ground too he’d stop looking so annoyingly impeccable.

Levi’s gaze flickered for a moment, so briefly that Eren almost didn’t catch it. “Mm. It’s a gay bar. Don’t worry about IDs, they’re pretty lax about it and you could probably pass as eighteen. It’s a fun place; we’ve been going for years.”

Eren’s brain was still stuck on the first line of that. “A _gay bar?!”_

“Did I fucking stutter? You—”

“The fuck, I’m not going to a—”

“There will be girls there too, straight ones with friends,” Levi cut across his indignation. Eren might have stopped to wonder why Levi seemed so intent on getting him to join them, but his mind was otherwise occupied with incredulity.

He shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t seriously be asking me this.”

The blond giant stepped up behind Levi, setting a hand on his shoulder with a sympathetic pat. Eren expected Levi to flinch away like he usually did when people touched him unexpectedly, but he was surprised to see Levi not even shift a muscle. Erwin’s huge hand just lay there, possessively, not moving.

“Come, Levi. You know it’s not worth it.” His voice was smooth and calm, and he had the fucking gall to smile lightly at Eren. Levi’s eyes bored into Eren’s for another beat longer, and then he turned away with an irate huff, not uttering another word. 

Eren watched them leave with a familiar old fury burning through his gut. He turned around to complain to Armin, but found that his friend had drifted over towards Jean and Marco again, laughing genuinely at Jean’s pathetic excuse for a drawing. Mikasa and Annie were gone apparently, and so was Eren’s ride. He watched silently as Sasha and Connie gave in their submissions for the emblem and then left together, arms linked and chatting mindlessly as usual.

Eren suddenly felt profoundly alone.

He’d never been the type to cling desperately to human interaction or feel like a lost soul whenever he had to do something by his lonesome, but sometimes life just hit him in the solar plexus like this. His friends and family meant absolutely everything to him, but maybe all he was doing was pushing them further away.

Someone poked him suddenly in the flank with a dull fingernail. “Hey, what’s with the long face? Hold it any longer and you’ll end up looking like Jean.” Unexpectedly, it was Ymir. She didn’t talk to him much these days, but things had lightened up between them ever since the fundraiser. She might be a dick, but at least she was good company.

“Hey,” he greeted, lips curving into a grin.

“I heard that just now: I know you’d turn Levi down ‘cause he’s a giant asshat, but you won’t refuse our invitation, huh?” She gestured over her shoulder to where Krista was perched on a desk nearby, flipping through a pile of sketches.

“What?” Eren blanched. “To the _gay bar?”_

“Yeah, why not? Krista and I go to the same one often and it’s pretty sweet.” Ymir looked carefully nonchalant, too blasé to be natural.

He blinked. “You’re inviting me?”

“Well, no.” She dropped the innocent act. “Krista told me to come over here because you were making the sad puppy face.”

The said Krista sighed, set down the papers she was holding, and then scooted across the desk to join them. “Y _mir_ ,” she scolded fondly.

Eren shook his head. What the fuck was even going on? “I ah… I don’t think so.”

“Aw Eren, please? I’m sure you’ll have fun, and it’ll be nicer for us if you come too.” She sent him one of those winning smiles she was so famous for, and Eren’s resolve began to crack.

“Pft, no it won’t be,” Ymir snorted under her breath, but Eren ignored her.

“Yeah, but it’s a gay bar.”

Krista crossed her arms, looking far more imposing than her petite figure should allow. “If you’re worried about that, I promise I’ll stay near you the whole time to keep the gay guys away.”

Ymir looked positively outraged. “What?! Krista!”

“I don’t know…”

“Look, Jaegermeister, I don’t extend invitations very often so you better appreciate this while you’ve still got the chance,” Ymir snapped, her patience beginning to run thin.

Eren was grasping at straws now. “But I have nothing to wear!”

Ymir laughed loudly. “And _that_ is the most heterosexual thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Shut up!”

Krista pinched Ymir’s arm before she could offer a retort to that. “So is that a yes?”

“It’s a go fuck yourself. Can I bring Armin along?”

Krista beamed, and Eren hoped she realized his previous comment hadn’t been directed at her. It was almost physically impossible to swear at Krista. “Of course! The more the merrier. Ask everyone to come.”

Ymir was looking like she severely regretted this decision, but Eren was sparked now with the party air. It had been a long time since he’d gone to any type of party, gay or not (they couldn’t really be that different, right?), so maybe it would be worth it after all. Besides, if he got all his other friends to come too, it might not be as foreign an experience as he was making it out to be.

“Hey ‘Min. I’ve been invited to a club tonight, are you free?” Normally, he wouldn’t have to ask, because Armin never did anything on Friday nights. But he couldn’t be sure these days, not with Jean and Marco around, stealing so much of Armin’s free time.

The blond turned to look at him in surprise. “A club? By who, Levi?”

“The gay bar that everyone’s apparently talking about.” He pulled a face. “And no, by Ymir and Krista actually. Don’t ask.”

Armin’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He shifted in his seat to stare at Eren. “Oh. You’re… okay with that?”

Jean was staring at Eren funny as well, but he didn’t deign his stupid fucking horseface with so much as a look. He hadn’t forgiven Jean yet for making an ass out of him in front of Levi and Erwin. “No. But I’ve been pressured into this so you better be coming along.”

“Yeah we’ll come, and Marco too. I think I know the place,” Jean answered before Armin could, seemingly completely oblivious to Eren’s silent-treatment.

“No one asked you, bitch!” So much for that silent-treatment. He sighed when Armin nodded his concession, although with slightly less enthusiasm than Jean. “Great. This is going to be just _fantastic._ A whole evening surrounded by freaks.” He turned away from their prying eyes, heading back to where Ymir and Krista were packing up their bags.

“Alright, we’re coming. What time?”

Krista’s eyes softened. “That’s wonderful, Eren, I’m glad. Just wait and see, you’ll have a great time; gay bars are so much nicer than normal nightclubs.”

“Yeah, if you’re _gay_.” No one contradicted him.

They agreed to meet out front at around eleven pm. Jean proclaimed himself designated driver (not that he had much choice, as he was the only one aside from Annie with a car) and offered to drive Eren, Armin, and Marco to the place because they all lived in the same sector of Trost. Ymir and Krista would meet them there.

Someone texted Sasha and Connie to invite them too, who consequently called Reiner and Bertholdt, and suddenly what had started as an odd invitation on Levi’s part had turned into an enormous and impromptu group outing.

It couldn’t hurt to give it all a shot, right?

 

 

 

“Seriously Armin, you need to help me. I don’t know what to do.”

“I _just_ told you, you can simply go as you are. Jean said it’s a fairly low-key place, not a hole in the wall, but people aren’t going to be dressed up in fancy suits!” He threw his hands up in the air in agitation.

Eren fumbled with his closet door, shoving it open and then shut again, repetitively. “Jeans and a t-shirt? I’ll look like a bum.”

Armin sighed, flopping onto Eren’s bed and staring up at the ceiling of Eren’s bedroom. “Who are you trying to impress?”

“No one!” Eren glared furiously at his half-open closet as if it was the perpetrator of all his strife, and then slammed it shut again. “I just want to look nice,” he mumbled.

Armin turned on his side and propped his head on his arm. “Eren, you literally look good in whatever you put on, it honestly doesn’t matter.”

Eren hesitated, muscles tightening. He glanced over his shoulder at Armin with a suspicious furrow to his eyebrows.

“What?” The blond smiled guilelessly in his direction. “You’re my best bro. I’m allowed to appreciate a nice-looking body when I get the chance, it doesn’t have to mean anything.” A dangerous shadow passed over his blue eyes, and Eren knew to drop the subject.

He groaned and tugged at the sleeve of his old hoodie. “Well what are you wearing then?” Right now, Armin was wearing a pale blue collared shirt and sweatpants, which he’d thrown on just before crossing the street to Eren’s house.

“This shirt and my white jeans.”

“The freakishly skinny ones?” Eren snorted a laugh. “Man, I should have known you were gay from those pants alone.” But Armin had always liked to wear nicer-looking styles of this sort, dress shirts or vests, and tight pants.

He expected Armin to chastise him and correct it to ‘bisexual,’ but the boy only colored slightly and threw a stray sock at Eren’s head, which missed by a wide margin of course.

Eren shoved open his closet again. “So these pants will work?” he held up a pair, skeptically.

Armin tutted. “Don’t you have something skinnier?”

“These _are_ skinny!”

“No they’re not,” Armin rolled his eyes, and Eren wondered when he’d become such a fashion expert. “Wear the grey ones.” Armin hopped off the bed and pushed aside a few of Eren’s shirts which were strewn all over the place, half spilling onto the floor. “… and this shirt.” He held up a simple light-grey dress shirt that Eren had forgotten he owned. “And wear your brown leather jacket over it so you won’t freeze.”

Eren blinked at him, but Armin just wrinkled his nose self-consciously. “Now go take a shower, fix your hair please, and put all this on. I need to go because Grandfather is making his infamous lasagna for dinner, so I’m definitely not going to miss that. I’ll see you tonight!”

“Oh… Okay, sure…” Eren glanced down at the fabric Armin thrust into his hands with a frown. Was it too late to ditch, now? He really didn’t think he wanted to do this. Maybe he could go third-wheel on Annie and Mikasa’s date. What had even possessed him to agree to this stupid outing in the first place?

Armin’s expression softened, noting the way Eren’s fist clutched tightly into the shirt. “I promise you Eren, there’s nothing to worry about. You’re not going to get hit on by any gay guys. It takes us about three seconds after initial contact to realize someone’s not into cock; it’s called gay-dar.”

Eren laughed despite himself, and smiled back at his best friend. Of course he knew what gay-dar was, but that hadn’t really alleviated his mind until Armin pointed out that they would probably have about as little interest in him as he did in them. “You make it sound like you’re some kind of separated species.”

Armin grinned. “Ah, wouldn’t you like to know.  You see, _Homo erectus_ never actually went extinct.” He threw a fucking wink at Eren, and then ran out of the bedroom door, laughing, seconds before Eren could chuck something slightly more painful than a sock at him. Damn that boy.

 

 

 

Shit, he took it all back. This had probably been a very bad idea.

Reiner and Bertholdt, being seniors and possessing a few extra notes in their wallets, had slipped the group of ten past the bouncer without a single hiccup. Eren now stood at the entrance to the _Deviant Titan_ – which, admittedly, did look very clean and borderline sophisticated – assaulted by a magnificent wave of sounds and colors that Eren had never even imagined could exist at this hour of the night.

The music was loud, but not painfully so, and though it was mostly dark, Eren was struck with the abundance of colors. He bumped into some guy decked out in exuberant neon colored fluffy stuff that Eren didn’t particularly care to examine more closely, took one look at his glittery face, and latched rather painfully on to Armin’s arm. He was so not ready for this.

“Armin…”

The blond shot him a reassuring look and mouthed something that Eren didn’t catch. He shook his head, took a hold of Eren’s wrist and pulled him through the throng of people to the far side, nearest the bar and furthest from the speakers. Eren glanced around uneasily, but the rest of their friends appeared to have vanished into anonymity.

“You okay?”

“No!” Eren spluttered, fingers wound tight into the hem of his shirt, feeling his heart beat such a sharp staccato in his chest that he began to feel lightheaded. Armin’s gentle touch on his wrist pulled him back to the present, and he chanced another nervous glance at the people around him. Now that he had a moment to breathe again, he realized his predicament wasn’t quite as bad as he’d initially thought. Most of the guys were dressed normally, some nicer than others, some showing more skin than other, but no half-naked people in leather jock straps as he had secretly feared.

And Levi had been right: there was a surprising abundance of people of the female gender interspersed among the crowd, usually in a group of friends, but some even with a man on their arm.

Armin was watching his face critically. “And now?”

Eren smiled weakly at him. “Better. Uh… Can I buy you a drink?”

Armin laughed, relaxing and finally letting go of Eren’s wrist. His skin felt cold in the absence of Armin’s touch, though the atmosphere of the club was warm. “You’re underage, mister, and you certainly look it right now. Go get some nice older guy to buy us one.”

“What? I’m not… ugh.” He gave up on trying to defend himself; the music was too loud to maintain normal conversational fluidity. “Where did Krista go? She had promised to stay with me.” He searched the crowd, but it was too dark to see much more than vague outlines illuminated by multicolored beams of light.  

“Oh, so I’m not good enough?” Armin began leading them towards the corner of the bar. The bartender nearest them, Eren noted, was some massive, tattooed guy who looked even more imposing than Reiner on a bad day, and Eren was glad Armin had stopped him before he’d attempted to order anything.

“Of course you are, but you’re a guy.”

Armin snorted. “And here I was, thinking perhaps for once you’d stopped thinking only about yourself and wanted to free me from babysitting you.” Eren knew Armin was joking but it still stung, because he knew what his friend was saying was true.

“You can go off and find… Jean, I’ll be fine right here,” he murmured, half-hoping Armin wouldn’t hear him for the thump of the music.

But Armin was a bit of a Superman when it came to hearing (and laser vision). “You look like you’re about to either be sick or pass out, Eren, stop it. I was just kidding!”

Feeling sulky and out of place, Eren leant against the edge of the bar and pretended to ignore Armin’s presence. He knew he was acting like a complete brat – honestly, Levi would have been unfavorably impressed – but he didn’t know what else to do with himself. He always became particularly obnoxious when he was uncomfortable.

A tall, pale blond guy approached them with a friendly smile, the disco lights catching in the gold rings in his ears. He was clearly older than them, stubble fuzzing his jaw, though his eyes were light and youthful.

“You two don’t look particularly entertained, and your hands are empty. Mind if I order two beers?”

Eren shot a panicked look Armin’s way, but his friend only smiled, thanking the stranger sweetly.

“ _Armin,_ ” Eren hissed under his breath. Hadn’t his grandfather ever told him not to accept drinks from strangers, especially older men? This time, however, it was Armin’s turn to ignore him.

“My name’s Erd. First time here?” He gestured between them. Eren didn’t like what that gesture seemed to imply, or the subtle question it was asking.

“Yeah, we just came with some friends. It’s Eren’s first time at a place like this.” Armin supplied, as the man propped an elbow on the counter and called the bartender’s attention. “Oh, and I’m Armin.”

“I’m not a homosexual!” Eren blurted suddenly, as the man’s amicable brown eyes ran over Armin, and then locked onto Eren’s curiously. They both looked startled and then laughed, even Armin, the traitorous asshole.

“That’s okay, bro. My girl friend’s looking for a dance partner, by the way, she’s the brunette over there.” The implied space between the two words was evident. “You can go introduce yourself if you’d like.”

Eren, contrary to popular belief (a.k.a. Jean and Connie), could sense a dismissal when he heard one, and since Armin was looking marginally interested, he figured he might as well not be an ass and get in their way. Fuck. Well, so he was on his own now.

He picked his way gingerly through the crowd in the general direction Erd had pointed, though it was practically impossible to distinguish between people in this state, not their hair color, sometimes not even their gender. What kind of a stupid name was Erd anyway? Eren mused angrily. It was almost as stupid a name as ‘Erwin.’

“Hey Jaeger,” said a familiar voice behind him, sounding slightly out of breath and just a notch louder than the music. “Have you seen—”

“Armin? He’s at the bar being chatted up by some dude, please go save him,” Eren said immediately, turning to Jean like he was a beacon of hope in the darkness, though it fatally wounded his pride to admit that. Damn, he was losing his most basic principles here, what next?

Jean stared at Eren like he’d suddenly sprouted another head and Eren realized belatedly that he was still desperately clutching Jean’s arm. He dropped him like he would a hot potato.

“Uh, you okay? You look slightly…”

“I’m fine! Perfectly. Just…” Jean was looking even more concerned so Eren shut his mouth. “He’s at the bar. Armin,” he repeated inanely.

Then Jean was gone, with nothing more than a preoccupied shake of his head, and Eren found himself in a throng of dancing people, trying his best not to be noticed as he absently searched for a familiar face. Sasha and Connie always livened up the party, and they were the straight people Eren really _should_ have been hanging out with anyway, so where the hell had they gone? The press of bodies on either side of him was suddenly suffocating. When someone accidentally touched his shoulder, Eren flinched away violently, fleeing deeper into the crowd with a mantra of ‘ _fuck fuck fuck’_ running through his mind.

The song changed then to something with a deep, fast-paced beat and raunchy lyrics that Eren didn’t recognize but that many others appeared to, judging by the excited cheers near him. As he stood there, at a loss, he realized that people were making way for something in the center of the floor, the number of whistles and catcalls increasing tenfold. Despite himself, Eren slunk through a group of girls to see what the deal was. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.

Two men were dancing in the center of the impromptu circle made around them, the sleek professionalism of their movements the reason they’d effectively cleared the dance floor. You couldn’t _not_ watch them. It was a performance, and a captivating one at that.

They moved almost too fast for Eren’s tired eyes to keep up, seeming to fade in and out of existence between every strike of the lights, movements so perfectly synced they appeared choreographed. That’s why Eren didn’t recognize them until the taller one spun the other in a tight circle against his chest, and Levi’s sharp grey eyes suddenly met Eren’s with startling accuracy. In the same moment, the lights shifted to illuminate the dancers from below, outlining the soles of their boots and legs as they moved, shifting planes of light across their bodies but casting their faces into shadow. Eren gasped inaudibly, feeling deaf all of a sudden, unable to see anything save for the dark, invisible smolder of Levi’s eyes. Holy _shit._

Levi was wearing a smart two-buttoned suit with a stand up collar, a dark shimmering grey over a plain white shirt, a neckline just low enough to show off his collarbones. Black jeans so tight Eren couldn’t fathom how he could dance so effortlessly in them, with a studded belt and wristband. The dark clothes and inky hair were a startling contrast against the pallor of his skin; the white shirt shone in the black light.

He was all sharp angles and strange ripples of light, fey-like in one instant, embodied power in another.

Eren hadn’t ever seen him wear clothes like this. Levi always dressed _nicely,_ in crisp dress shirts and dark pants, but this was… something else.

Erwin, dressed in a silk-like dark purple shirt with his blond hair slicked back neatly, caught him by the waist and let his hands drift lower, slipping through his belt loops and pulling Levi against him for an altogether different type of dancing. Eren stared, caught between revulsion and fascination.

But Levi didn’t give his audience the satisfaction of watching them grind: he twisted around and wound his fingers into Erwin’s neat hair, shoving him roughly to his knees, and sliding just out of reach for the dramatic finish of the song. The young men surrounding Eren clapped and cheered, some even good-naturedly offering their condolences to Erwin who stood tall amongst the crowd.

Eren swallowed hard, his tongue feeling heavy and fuzzy in his mouth as he tried to clear his mind, backing away from the main cluster of people. He desperately hoped Levi hadn’t seen him watching, that the heated look in Levi’s eyes had been a result of his dance and not directed at Eren.

He couldn’t have been seen. Feeling hot and itchy all over, constrained in his leather jacket – _why a leather jacket, Armin? –_ he tried desperately to keep his footing as the crowd surged to the next song. He needed to get back to the relative safety of the bar and then – oh fuck no, there was Levi headed right towards him.

He had about a split second to decide whether to flee or to hold his ground; but the masses parted before Levi’s glare like the Red Sea before Moses, and Eren’s opportunity was lost.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Levi greeted smoothly, reaching up to cup a hand around Eren’s ear to make himself heard above the music. His breath betrayed his exertion from the dance, coming in a soft puff against Eren’s skin. Up close, Eren could see that Levi’s eyes were rimmed with a smoky black, the grey of his irises like chips of flint against a dark background.

“Um. Yeah, I came.”

Levi’s eyebrow raised in thinly veiled amusement. “Oh, you did, did you? I’m well-aware our performance is rather arousing, but I’ve never been quite _that_ successful before.”

Eren blushed red faster than he thought was possible. “That’s not what I—” He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to look at Levi, trying to calm his rapidly increasing heart rate. He was starting to feel ill. Maybe he was having an allergic reaction. “Go away,” he ground out through gritted teeth.

Levi chuckled to himself, then grabbed Eren’s elbow firmly, leading him back towards the bar. His touch burned right through Eren’s jacket. “Nah. I’d like to know why my kind invitation was refused and yet here you are, Mr. Homophobe in Trost’s gayest nightclub.”

“It’s not just me, asshole, everyone is here and I was pressured into coming.” Eren scanned the bar for Armin’s familiar shock of blond, but this part of the club seemed to be currently devoid of any of his companions. Hopefully Armin had managed to shake that older guy off.

Levi ordered himself a glass with a skeptical glance in Eren’s direction. Eren realized he was expecting Levi to offer to buy him a drink too but, well, gentlemanliness had never been Levi’s most defining trait. He sighed, tugging irritably at his key. Like hell was he going to _ask._

“Shouldn’t you be getting back to your boyfriend?” Eren spat with unnecessary venom, slumping into the stool that Levi nudged him towards.

Levi’s eyes hardened. He ran a hand through his hair, perspiration making the dark strands stick back, and Eren saw him without the bangs falling into his eyes for the first time. He looked younger like this, almost more dangerous.

“Erwin’s not my boyfriend. I’ve told you this already.” He nodded his thanks to the bartender, handing over a pile of coins.

“Well _he_ didn’t seem to have gotten the memo.”

Levi snorted, eyeing Eren with a raised brow over the edge of his glass as he took a deep swill. “What, and you were watching that closely? Jaeger,” he tutted, “you sound like a jealous housewife.”

Eren frowned. Something Levi had said earlier had hit a little too close to home, and the previous queasy sensation came rushing back, stronger than before. It felt like there suddenly wasn’t enough oxygen in the air, and he had to fight valiantly to keep his breathing steady. His cheeks began heating up with the effort it took to breathe properly.

He stood up abruptly. “I have to go.”

Levi took another slow sip from his beer and watched him impassively. “Eren, sit down.”

“No, I can’t—I need to leave.” His voice shook. “I’m sorry.” He took a step away, suddenly struck with deep-rooted panic, except his vision swam dreamily before his eyes and he vaguely felt himself pitch forward. When he regained consciousness a split second later, he found himself supported by Levi’s warm grip, his nose pressed into the dark fabric of his suit jacket.

“Whoa okay, take it easy,” Levi’s eyes had widened and he almost looked concerned, an arm tight around his waist as he hoisted him up. Eren tried to breathe in deeply, but Levi’s clothes smelt exotic and spicy and the scent went straight to his head. He closed his eyes tight to keep the nausea down, letting Levi guide him blindly out of the stuffy bar and into the blissfully cool night air.

He felt a few distrustful gazes on them as they passed, bystanders probably concerned about Levi’s ulterior intentions or whether he’d slipped something into Eren’s drink, but the former’s dark glare kept their mouths shut.

Eren stumbled across the narrow street and leaned against the wall of the opposite building in the faint pool of light under a street light, sucking in fresh air like it was liquid and letting his forehead thud painfully against the stone. He waited until the impending sense of needing to throw up passed by.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Eren said miserably into the silence, not opening his eyes. “I can’t deal with this shit.” His fists clenched at his side, and in a fit of anger, he slammed his fist against the stone by his head. The shock shuddered through the bones of his arm and into his chest, loosening something inside of him.

“I hate this,” he spat, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, hot angry tears. “I hate you _sick people.”_ His words echoed in the empty street like a prophecy. “It’s alright, when I’m at school, because I _know_ you all. I can forget you’re all gay as fuck because you’re also my _friends._ But here, it’s like… There are all these strangers watching me, and people dressed like… like… it’s _everywhere._ You know what I mean? It’s t-too much. I can’t… I feel like… I feel so _disgusting.”_

He swallowed his sobs, wiping his tears away in a fury. His fist ached, but it felt dull against the inexplicable pain in his chest. He waited, expecting Levi to make some cutting reply, but he was only met with tense silence.

Silence that dragged on like fingers through wet matted dog fur, catching on thick tufts; silence like an unpleasant smell permeating the air.

Eren opened his eyes, turning around and leaning his shoulders against the wall instead. Levi had crossed his arms over his chest, his head lowered just such that his face was cast in shadow.

Eren noticed how his jaw clenched, cheekbones sharp under the murky shadow cast by the lone streetlamp. “Brouse and Springer,” Levi suddenly said in a tight voice. “Are they here too?”

He blinked, thrown off by the seemingly random topic change. “Uh, what? Why? I mean yeah, they are, but—”

“Do you want me to fetch them?”

Eren straightened, blank confusion replacing his earlier nausea. “What the hell are you going on about?”

Levi’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click. “Apparently my presence here is not conducive to your health, and those two idiots are the only perfectly heterosexual people you know here.”

_Oh_. “But—”

“Who drove you here?”

“Jean did but—”

“Then I’ll ask them to drive you back home.”

He turned on his heel, intent on heading right back through the club’s doors, but Eren spurred finally into action. He jumped forward and grabbed Levi’s arm in a panic, feeling like the ground was slipping away under his feet.

“Levi, wait!” The other boy shot him a deathly glare and Eren quickly dropped his arm, but stayed close nevertheless. “Why are you acting like this? I didn’t—I didn’t mean _you,_ it’s none of… of any of you guys.” He gestured wildly, desperate for Levi to understand. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

Levi shook him off, lips curled into a sneer that bared his teeth. He looked almost animalistic; eyes poised for attack and illusionary hackles raised. “No, Eren, I _don’t_ know that, and you cannot possibly expect me to just let this go after you say something so cruel, to my face no less. The fact that you look so damn confused right now is precisely the problem.”

He turned to face him fully, and Eren stumbled back half a step at the stone in Levi’s expression. “You can’t just pick and choose your enemies, brat. You’re fabricating this ridiculous illusion around yourself that you expect everyone else to just play along with for your personal ease of mind. I don’t know if you’ve somehow missed this crucial fact, but I am _gay,_ Eren.” Levi took a step forward, and Eren flinched. “I am gay, and I don’t know how you expect me to just ignore the manner in which you speak about my own people, as if… as if you want me to _support_ you, or _comfort_ you, or whatever the fuck you thought I was going to do just then.”

Eren swallowed hard. _You just fucked up real bad, bro,_ said a voice in his mind, and it sounded unnervingly like himself.

“Levi—”

But Levi wasn’t done yet. “You know what?”

“What?” repeated Eren numbly, when Levi paused for effect.

“I thought there was a _chance_ , that’s what. A chance that you might change, that maybe I could turn your stupid bigoted head around in time. That maybe your reactions were just an exaggeration, a result of childhood indoctrination… who knows. I never dreamed that your intolerance ran so deep as to make you _physically ill_ in a situation like this.”

Levi’s expression wavered slightly, then hardened. “Frankly, I don’t get paid to do this shit, and I’ve had enough. Why should I honor the company of a person who is ‘disgusted’ by everything that I am? I’m sure _you_ , for one, can find a group of people who are far more worth your time.”

Levi took a step back, his lips set in a firm line. “Now, is Jean’s car available for someone to bring you back home?”

Eren’s fingers closed tightly around his key, and he slipped easily into autopilot because he didn’t have time to process what had just happened.

“No. I, uh, we all came in the same car so that’s not gonna work, or no one else will be able to get home tonight.” Especially not Marco, who needed Jean’s help to move from wheelchair to car seat.

Levi groaned subtly, and ran a hand through his fringe in an uncharacteristic sign of frustration. “And no one can come pick you up?”

Eren thought wryly about asking his mother to come pick him up from the doorstep of a gay bar, and he might have laughed, had it been under other circumstances. “Levi, I’m fine, you don’t have to—”

“You obviously can’t stay here in this condition, brat.” He eyed him with distaste, and it made something sick twist in Eren’s stomach. He chewed his lip nervously, dropping his gaze to the ground and trying to still his pulsating heart rate.

“Alright, fine then.” Levi turned on his heel again, and then crossed to the row of parked cars further down the narrow street. “I’ll drive you, but this is the last time you’re setting your pretty little ass in my car. Hurry up and get in.”

Sufficiently cowed, Eren opened the familiar car door and slid into his seat, eyes glued to his lap and not on Levi who sat down heavily behind the wheel and thrust his key into the ignition with enough force that Eren flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled quietly, wincing as Levi yanked the car into reverse and backed out smoothly into the deserted street. Levi shot him an unimpressed glance.

“Sorry’s not gonna cut it, kid. Here,” he fished his phone out of his suit jacket pocket and dropped it in Eren’s lap. “Make yourself useful and text Erwin to tell him where I am.”

Eren unlocked the phone and scrolled through the surprisingly short list of contacts until he reached _‘Commander Eyebrows.’_ He figured it was an inside joke.

 

**You** 23:57, Fri **> > **_Hi this is Eren. I wasn’t feeling very well so Levi offered to drive me home, sorry. He says you shouldn’t wait for him as he won’t be coming back._

Yeah, he wouldn’t be coming back alright, and Eren wasn’t just talking about the club. He sent it off before he could agonize over the wording for too long.

Struck with some kind of morbid curiosity, Eren surreptitiously scrolled back through the contacts and searched for his own name. There was a ‘ _Shitty-glasses’_ who could be none other than Hanji, and the unknown _‘Tweedle-dee’_ and _‘Tweedle-dum,’_ and another one named _‘Petra’_ (what an honor, not to have her name be slaughtered in Levi’s contact list, whoever she was) among others. And finally, his own number filed under _‘Brat’_ near the top of the alphabetically-sorted list. Eren didn’t look up from the blue-lit screen of Levi’s phone.

“Is that really all I am to you?” he asked quietly.

“What?”

“A brat.” He held up the phone in explanation, hand trembling.

Levi glanced at it briefly and then let out an imperceptible sigh. “Stop asking stupid questions,” he snapped back warningly.

Eren clenched his fists tightly in his lap and stared at them, stared at the torn skin from where he’d punched the stone façade. He had to make this right, somehow; he wouldn’t have another chance.

“I know I’ve treated you like complete shit, Levi, and I’m so so sorry. I’ve never learned to censor my words, I always say the first thing that comes to mind. I know that doesn’t excuse anything but… I’m really trying to learn to accept.” He tucked his hands under his thighs to stop them from clenching at his key again. “I know it doesn’t seem so with the way our relationship began but I’ve always, well, admired you I guess. You’re completely your own person, with this identity you embrace devoid of external influences…” He trailed off uncertainly, but the dam had broken.

He swallowed past the dryness in his throat. “It made me so happy when you started paying attention to me and driving me home and all that. I guess I just wanted… I was glad to be your friend, because I know not many people have that… honor. And I know I’ve botched that up now, but, all I’m saying is please don’t push me away!” he burst out, sitting up straight and meeting Levi’s cold gaze squarely.

Levi focused on the road again, expression shuttered. Eren couldn’t read a damn thing. The car slid to a stop a few moments later, and Eren realized with a jolt that they’d already pulled up in front of his house.

“Tch. You can wax poetic all you’d like, kid, but I’m not known for changing my mind. You’ve pushed me too far already.” He sighed. “I’m not someone you want to call your friend, anyway.” Levi’s eyes bored into his, completely serious, and Eren felt like an idiot after having spewed out all that shit. This wasn’t some kind of cheesy romance novel where Levi would just take him back after some flattery, though what Eren had said had been the unadulterated truth.

What the hell was he even thinking, they weren’t _breaking up!_ Even their perceived friendship had been one-sided, apparently. There was no use trying to get anything else out of Levi now.

Eren licked his lips and nodded to himself, just faintly. “Okay. I’ll… I'll see you around, I guess.”

“Goodbye, Eren.” He didn’t even sound the slightest bit remorseful. Eren set Levi’s cellphone down on the seat beside him and then climbed out of the car rather ungracefully, shutting the door firmly behind him. He just narrowly avoided getting his shoes run over as Levi pressed down on the gas the minute Eren took one step from the door.

He rubbed a palm over his face as the red taillights disappeared into the dark, and then turned towards his house, preparing to face the wrath of his mother for staying out so late on a ‘study-date with Jean.’

_I’m not someone you want to call a friend._ The hell did that mean anyway?

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you say anything, how much more could you have taken, in Levi's shoes?


	9. Catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean is more helpful than you'd imagine, hot chocolate mends wounds of the heart, and — oh who cares about that, this is the revelation chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who’s back!! 8D (Lmao I hope some of you are still here ^^;). You guys did not deserve this long a wait, I’m so sorry. Thank you for all the supportive comments here and on tumblr when I was hitting a rough spot after last chapter, I just want to hug you all, honestly. This was by far the most difficult chapter to write yet and tbh I was a little afraid of it ;w;
> 
> I was preparing for uni and my amazing beta [Ymir](http://applecascade.tumblr.com/) has been struggling with college apps, so the last few months have been a bit of a whirlwind. But enough with the excuses, here is a 10K TITAN to make up for a shit lacking summer. 
> 
> (Warning for a little NC-17 scene featuring Eren+his hand near the middle if that bothers you, but it’s not graphic so you can skim.)
> 
> P.S. –--- If you forgot what this fic is even about since it’s been an eternity, here’s a short very accurate summary of the last chapter: _Eren, who is Very Much Not Gay, remember, heads to a gaybar with the rest of the 104th – I mean, the Trost High GSA – where he is abandoned by his shitty friends (bad bad Armin!) and stumbles upon an Erwin and a Levi doing a Very Sexy Dance. Eren’s ~~queer~~ little heart goes doki-doki with the unexpected onslaught of feels, to which the natural response is violent lashing out, a panic attack, and lots of hurt feelings all around. Levi is in a bad mood and concludes that he deserves better than to deal with this confused homophobic brat and essentially tells him to fuck off (but like, he still cares, bc he brings Eren home and all). _

 

 

“Alright, I think we know most of this…” Armin flipped through a few pages of their shared Biology textbook, the glossy pages smooth under his nimble fingers.

“Uh huh.” Eren chewed the end of his pencil absentmindedly, gazing out the window into the school courtyard below them. It was break time for the little kids, and he watched them frolic around like wildlings. Wouldn’t it be nice to slip back to the times when his greatest problem was whether or not his father would be called in if Eren had punched someone in the face at recess.

“Ah, photosynthesis. Tell me, what are the three steps of the Calvin Cycle?”

Eren popped the pencil out of his mouth with a startled jump, the plastic cracking as it dropped to the table. “What? Oh… um, something with rubisco…?”

“Eren,” Armin sighed, looking disappointed in the pleading way that only Armin could pull off. “Calvin Cycle, come on, I know you know this.”

Eren winced, looking down at the page searchingly as if it would answer all his questions. “Sorry ‘Min, you know I hate the Plant chapter.”

“Which is why we’re doing it _now_ because I know you won’t study it at home.” Armin covered the page hastily with his hand, blocking Eren’s sight. He groaned; sometimes Armin was _too_ good of a best friend.  “Calvin Cycle,” Armin repeated, part-encouragement, part-menace.

Eren rubbed his temple with two fingers. “I don’t know! I can’t think right now.”

“Didn’t you sleep last night?” Armin glanced at him critically, probably noticing the dark shadow under his eyes.

“Not very well.” That was not a lie. In fact, he’d barely slept the entire weekend, not with what had happened last Friday night.

“Ah, so you still weren’t feeling so good?” Armin prompted, but Eren didn’t answer. He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “What happened, after Levi drove you home, did you guys…?”

“It’s not like that all, Jesus, he like… he basically broke up with me.” Armin’s eyes widened and Eren realized his mistake. “I mean, shit. He revoked my friendship.” Eren took a deep breath. It _felt_ like a fucking break up. Or, as much as he’d imagine one to be, since he’d never exactly had a proper relationship.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I said some shit things and he basically said he wants nothing to do with me ever again.” Eren decided not to mention how he’d also nearly passed out in the club after watching Levi and Erwin dance. Armin would take a panic attack too seriously. 

The blond hummed thoughtfully. “No punch then?”

“A punch wouldn’t have cut it this time,” Eren replied morosely. He wondered when he’d realized words could sometimes hurt more than a physical blow ever could.

“Well, surely he didn’t mean it.”

Eren glanced at him out of bleary eyes. “Uh, yes he did, does Levi look like the type to ever joke around? He literally couldn’t give a shit about me.”

“I find that very difficult to believe,” Armin said confidently.

Eren shook his head. “Our entire perceived friendship was just an experiment. Do you realize that? He’s as bad as Hanji, really. Worse, because I trusted him.”

Armin flicked a ball of fuzz off the textbook page. “What do you mean?”

“It was all just an experiment to see if he could convert me to the rainbows and sparkles. Or at least to… change my… I don’t know. But I can’t, Armin, you know I can’t.”

Armin held him in his blue gaze for a long, tense moment. “Nothing’s impossible, Eren.”

They stared at each other in uncomfortable, loud silence until Eren finally scooped up the pieces of plastic from his crushed pencil and tossed them into the trashcan nearby.

“Carbon fixing, phosphorylation, and regeneration of ribulose bisphosphate,” he recited dully, eyes closing in defeat. “Next question, please.”

Armin deflated and returned to his book, though the comfortable mood they usually studied in had dissipated for the remainder of that morning.

 

 

 

“Hey Jaeger, you got a minute?”

Eren stopped on his way out the classroom door, shifting his bag into a more comfortable position on his shoulder. Jean approached him reluctantly, bearing a supremely irritated and sour face. (Levi would have called it constipated, Eren thought.)

“What?”

Jean scrubbed a hand through his two-toned hair as the other students bumped past them on their way into the hallway. “My German final is next week.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Eren scowled.

Jean’s frown grew even deeper. “You’re a native speaker.”

“Yes, and?” A smug smile began to spread over his lips as he caught on.

Jean groaned. “ _And,_ German is fucking hard.”

“I’m afraid I have no control over how hard German is,” Eren replied silkily, finding it easy to forget his troubles when it came to annoying Jean. “It’s a language that’s existed long before you and me.” Jean shot him a murderous look but Eren set his hands on his hips. “Say it, horseface!”

“Will you _please_ help me pass my German final?” Jean grit out through clenched teeth.

Eren dared to push a touch further since he was immune to even Jean’s darkest glare after three months of being neutralized by Levi’s. “Hold up!!” He pretended to desperately pat his pockets for a pen and paper. “I need to write this down: the one day Jean stooped so low as to ask his sworn enemy for help!”

“Go fuck yourself, asshole.” He made as if to turn around but Eren laughed genially, batting him on the arm.

“Hey, I never said I wouldn’t. We can go to the café now, if you want.”

Jean breathed out something which sounded like _‘thank god’_ and _‘oh shit’_ muddled together, and they made their way unhurriedly to _Maria’s_ in the next free period.

 

 

 

Levi wasn’t at the counter, thankfully, nor was he to be seen anywhere in the café: there was only a pretty strawberry-blonde that Eren didn’t recognize, fixing the menu on the chalkboard against the wall. He relaxed against the familiar backdrop of the coffee machine hums and gurgles, and muffled conversations from the few other occupied tables. Eren dumped his bag beside his usual seat, pulled out a clean sheet of lined paper and steepled his fingers under his chin.

“So, what don’t you understand?”

Jean blinked at him uncomfortably and scratched his nose. “Um. Everything, kinda.” Yes, he was being serious; Eren could tell by the nervous jiggling of his leg under the low table. Jean tended to give off the impression that he didn’t give a shit about schoolwork, but Eren knew him well enough by now to know how much Jean actually stressed about his grades and final exams, among other things.

“Okay.” He sighed in resignation. “I think we need some coffee before this can go on.”

Eren went up cautiously to the counter and caught the girl’s attention, ordering his usual mocha and a regular coffee for Jean. He smiled wryly to himself at the parallel with the last time he’d been in here with Armin. At least, Jean wouldn't have a huge ass bomb like _coming out_ to drop on him like Armin did. Eren waited until the girl had turned to take his bills to glance at her nametag.

“Uh, Petra, is it?” he started, and she smiled at him, pleased. The name seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it just then.

“Yes, anything else you need?”

“Not really. Just, do you happen to know Levi?”

Her expression lit up, and she nodded. “Of course, he’s my—we’re classmates.” So she must be a senior too, huh. Suddenly he remembered where he’d seen her name before: in Levi’s contact list last Friday.

“Do you know when his shift is?”

“Oh, he doesn’t work Mondays, I’m sorry! I can pass on a message though.”

“No!” he yelped, accidentally using his outdoor-voice. “I mean, don’t worry about that. Actually, don’t even tell him I asked, please.” She looked kind and soft around the edges, younger than she was with her hair pinned to the side in a flowery clip, so he felt like he could trust her.  “We’re not exactly uh, on speaking terms at the moment.”

“Oh…” Suddenly something shifted in her amber eyes, and she seemed to look at him more carefully. “Oh! You’re Eren, aren’t you?”

Eren balked. How did all of Levi’s friends somehow seem to know him? The same thing had happened with Erwin. Levi couldn’t possibly have been talking about Eren. He barely talked as it was, and Eren was certainly not worth the few words that did grace his lips.

“Yep, that’s me. It’s nice to meet you?” he answered uncertainly.

She gave him another warm smile and then handed over his two coffees. “Likewise. And Levi’s shifts are on Tuesdays and Thursdays from four to six, and on Wednesdays right after the lunch period in case you need to catch him.”

Eren thanked her, disheartened, making a mental note to never enter the café during those hours, and returned to his seat where Jean sat bowed heavily over his textbook.

“Alright, so… basics then? Please tell me you know about the case system and declined pronouns and things.”

Jean made a face. “I can never tell them apart though, like what the hell, demonstrative pronouns? Why can’t you just have a simple ‘this’ and that’ like in English? Who thought this was a good idea?”

Eren snickered. “Aren’t you French? They have something similar, I think.”

“Well yeah, my _mom_ is, but I never learned!”

Eren snorted derisively. “Figures…”

“Hey! Shut your trap—”

The brunet held up his hands in surrender, cutting Jean off. “Dude, we’re going to have to be civil if the next few hours are to be productive, deal?”

Jean seemed to struggle internally for a moment, before he slumped into his seat again. “Yeah, deal. So, pronouns?”

 

 

 

Three hours later, Eren had never felt this drained during his entire life. He’d once won a 400m swimming competition when he was seven and he was sure even _that_ experience didn’t compare to how mentally exhausted he was now. He dropped his forehead to the table and groaned. Jean wasn’t faring much better, though.

“Oh my god. _Why_ did I take German?”

“Because you’re an idiot.”

A soft voice interrupted their mutual fog of despair. “Hey, would you two like anything else to drink?” Petra asked, clearing away their empty mugs… for the fourth time.

Jean pulled his pockets inside out and shrugged.

“Sorry, I’m broke too,” Eren shook his head.

“Oh the house,” she said after a moment, and smiled at Eren’s surprised expression.

“What, we can’t—”

Jean grinned at her like she was an angel sent from heaven. “I could really go for a hot chocolate right now,” he smirked, never one to let an opportunity go to waste. “If I have any more caffeine I’m going to bash someone’s head against a tree.”

“And you, Eren?”

The designated boy shrugged uncomfortably. He didn’t like getting things for free like this; it felt like cheating. “Whatever’s easy.”

She tucked her pen behind her ear. “Okay! I’ll make you something special then.” She spun around and returned to the counter, leaving behind a pleasant scent of perfume. Eren felt Jean leering at him and turned to face him curiously.

“What?”

“Well would you look at that; she totally has a crush on you.”

Eren glanced over at Petra in confusion. “Of course she doesn’t, have you fallen and hit your head or something?”

“‘I’ll make you something special’?” he mocked in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Petra’s. “And how does she even know your name?”

Eren _really_ didn’t want to get into that. “We both know Levi.”

They waited silently, surprisingly, considering Jean rarely ever shut his mouth, until Petra returned with their respective drinks.

“Hot chocolate with extra cream. And this here is Levi’s patented drink; I’m the only other one who knows the recipe but I hope you’ll like it.”

She set the steaming, frothy drink in front of Eren and flitted away again before he could properly thank her. The scent was rich and chocolatey with a sharper undercurrent, a strange combination Eren wasn’t sure how to place. There was a caramelized heart on the foamy whipped cream topping the drink.

“She drew a heart for you.”

Eren glanced over at Jean’s mug. “She drew one for you too, dumbass, that doesn’t mean anything.”

The boy shook his head knowingly. “She made you a _special_ drink with a _heart_ on it. Now do you believe me?” He snickered from across the table, taking a deep gulp from his hot chocolate and emerging from behind the mug with a white streak of foam on his upper lip. Eren hadn’t thought Jean could ever look any stupider than he naturally did, but this took the crown. He stifled a laugh.

“C’mon, she’s pretty cute too,” Jean continued thoughtfully, oblivious to Eren’s silent mockery.

Eren’s good mood started to dissipate. “I thought you liked dick,” he retorted irritably.

“ _Yeah,_ most of the time,” was all Jean replied. “Besides, I should probably call myself pansexual or whatever. I’m dating Marco, after all.”

Eren inspected his drink. The spiciness in the air reminded him vaguely of the scent he’d smelt on Levi’s clothes that night at the club, and he imagined he could feel the smooth texture of Levi’s jacket under his cheek as he’d guided him out into the fresh air. Eren had to set the mug down without tasting it.

There was something he’d been meaning to ask Armin, but after their talk that morning he knew it would have been way too suspicious to bring it up then. Perhaps…

“How… how did you know you were gay?” Eren asked suddenly, before he had even come to a conscious decision about whether or not to ask. He winced, staring down intently at his drink and hoping pitifully that Jean somehow hadn’t heard him.

Jean stilled and glanced up at him in curious disbelief. No such luck. “Uh, _what?_ Since when do you care?”

Eren grit his teeth, knowing there was nowhere to back out to now. “I’m… I don’t know. ‘Ignorance is the root of all evil’.”

Jean laughed, and for once it wasn’t snidely. “Did Armin tell you that? Well, I guess there wasn’t much to it. One day I was like, ‘boobs are hot,’ and the next day I was like, ‘but dicks are too.’”

That hadn’t exactly answered his question, and Eren frowned, tracing the healing scrape on his knuckles from where he’d punched the wall outside the club. “Yeah, but how did you _know?”_

Jean rubbed his nose, light brown eyes distant. “Okay, so you know how I had that huge-ass crush on your sister in ninth grade?”

Yes, Eren remembered. That was how they’d first met, at Orientation Day, while Eren was in line behind Jean and Mikasa had walked by. Jean had made some comment about Mikasa’s ‘huge rack’ and had received Eren’s fist to his face and an outraged shout of ‘ _that’s my sister, you asshole!”_ That pretty much summed up their relationship as a whole.

“Well, the same thing happened with this cashier at my local CVS, I thought he was the hottest thing. I mean I never spoke to him or anything, and then he moved away so that was that. But that made me realize, I guess.” He grinned suddenly, eyes refocusing on the present. “And porn, that helped too.”

Eren made a face. “There’s gay porn?”

“Duh, I didn’t know you lived under a rock.” He watched Eren’s face for a moment, and then continued quietly. “It wasn’t a big deal for me because it had always been a non-issue, like, I talked about it with my parents and all, and we had plenty of gay or queer family friends. I never really cared much about putting a label on my sexuality, and now I’m just happy the way I am.” Jean shrugged awkwardly. “I know it sounds cheesy as fuck, but who cares if Marco’s a boy or a girl or something else? I like being with him, and that’s all that matters.”

He actually looked sincere for once and Eren leant back heavily in his seat, not sure how to deal with this new side of Jean. It was no surprise that Jean was honest; it was his most defining trait, really. But with all Jean’s lewd teasing, Eren hadn’t quite expected this level of honestly regarding this subject.

“I guess.”

Jean rolled his eyes, regaining a bit of his spirit. “Maybe you could try being a bit more tolerant for once. Who knows, you might even be a whole lot more agreeable.”

Eren thought about how Levi had reacted to all the shit he’d said, by effectively putting him in his place. He’d deserved it, even though Levi had struck at a particularly vulnerable time. It occurred to him that he’d been saying the same kinds of things to Armin for years, but the blond had stuck by his side the whole time. He wasn’t happy a lot of the time, but he never seemed particularly hurt at what Eren said. He realized, now, that he probably had hurt him quite a bit. Armin was just a good actor, and way too loyal a friend. Armin… Jean… even Mikasa.

Absentmindedly, he took a sip of his [drink](http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/mexican-hot-cocoa-241138), and nearly choked.

It tasted like hot chocolate but it also burned his throat, something sweet and spicy that should taste revolting by all means but which really, really didn’t.  It reminded him of a drink his mother had used to make for him when he was a kid, back when things were alright between them and she had time to make him breakfast in bed on the weekends. He was shocked by the sudden wave of emotion and memory that rolled over him.

“What’s wrong, did she drug your drink? You always have to wary of the sweet-looking ones,” Jean was saying, back to his usual fuckboy self.

Eren swallowed his mouthful. “No. It’s just… surprisingly good.” On impulse, he pushed his mug across the table. “Want to try? It’s not like we’re getting any more work done now anyway.”

Jean blinked but took the mug, eyeing Eren suspiciously. His eyes widened when he took a sip, and then another larger one.

“Hey fatass, I said a _sip_ not a Sasha-style chug!”

His friend smirked at him, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Does this mean our truce is over now? I feel like we had way too much of a heart to heart moment just then, it’s weird not being able to insult you.”

“Go to hell.” Eren wrestled his mug back from Jean’s grip, trying not to slosh any of the delicious liquid over the rim, but he was grinning. The mood shifted into something lighter as they fell back into their usual banter, packing up strewn papers and textbooks and finishing their drinks in easy camaraderie. Eren liked to pretend that he and Jean hated each other’s guts, but honestly there were few boys he got along with better than the idiotic horseface.

He was lucky to have the friends that he did.

 

 

 

They were in the cafeteria that Wednesday because it was officially too cold to eat lunch outside anymore, even though most students were desperately trying to deny that winter was coming. The Trost High cafeteria was divided by multiple long, mess-hall style tables. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin usually ate in their own individual group, but Jean and Marco had taken to joining them occasionally, mostly because they always got the end of the table and that was the only spot Marco could comfortably eat from, having to sit in a wheelchair as it was.

Eren was just about to dig into his horribly unhealthy burger (the school lunches were cheaper these days) when Marco abruptly stopped speaking, expression darkening just slightly. Eren jumped as a girl suddenly appeared at his side, expertly balancing her tray on one hand.

“Oh hello _boys,”_ she drawled in a nasally voice. “Mind if we join you for lunch?”

It was Hitch and her boyfriend Marlow. They were both seniors, and although Eren had never exchanged a word with either of them, he’d heard Jean and Connie complaining about them enough times to know how most of his friend group despised them. They were filthy rich, had ears in all corners of the social sphere, and were the school’s über-bitches.

Hitch slid into the seat next to Mikasa, and Marlow scooted in opposite her like two sharks honing in on their prey.

Jean’s jaw set dangerously, and he put his fork down with exaggerated slowness.

“What’s that look for?” She smiled with mock-hurt, rolling up the sleeve of her white dress.

Mikasa was glaring at Jean in an attempt to shut him up but he ignored her, replying with a snide, “It’s just that you’re not all that welcome at this table, that’s all.”

Hitch took a slow sip from her glass of water, apparently unaffected. Her heavy-lidded amber eyes slid to Marco and then back. “That’s a shame. Especially considering how you and your _dear_ girlfriend are such an abomination. It’s a miracle a girl like her was even let into this school.” She clucked her tongue. “How about you don’t speak to me like that again, or we’ll see who is _truly_ welcome here.”

The other thing Eren knew well enough was how Hitch’s family was intimately acquainted with the school administration, and enough money had exchanged hands over the generations than any complaints taken up with Ms. Dreyse were fruitless. She and her family had enough connections to pull the strings where they could. Jean, no doubt, knew that she could quite easily get Marco’s transfer to Trost revoked should she feel inclined to do so one day.

However, that knowledge didn’t hold him back much.

“His name,” Jean said with forced control, “is _Marco.”_

Hitch laughed lightly, twirling a strand of curly hair around her finger. “Your protectiveness is cute, but rather overbearing. Oh Kirschtein, you go all out don’t you? It’s not enough just to be gay. No, you had to go date a _trans_ -boy who is physically _disabled._ Ticks off pretty much all the boxes, doesn’t it?”

Marlow was watching Eren out of deep set, blank eyes, and Eren schooled his expression back from whatever it had been. Uncomfortable indignation churned in his stomach. Hitch smiled, digging a fork into her salad. The atmosphere crackled with tension as she turned her attention to Armin.

“What’s your name, boy? You’re a sweet looking thing. Bet you’re one of them too, aren’t you? Heaven knows your sort travel in packs like… _vermin_.” Her lip curled.

Armin stared at the table without offering an answer, and when Eren glanced back at Marco, he noticed they both had the same blank façade on.

“Mikasa,” Hitch greeted with false enthusiasm, and Eren wondered how she even knew his sister’s name. “You do know I’m good friends with Annie, don’t you?”

“She’s spoken very highly of you,” Mikasa replied in a voice crafted from stone.

Hitch looked surprised for an instant, before tilting her head. “Well look at that, Marlow,” she said, lips curving into a sickly smile. “This pretty girl’s got thorns.”

Eren set his burger down with a thump.

“Don’t talk to my sister like that.” The words tumbled out before he could restrain them.

Hitch turned her curiously empty hazel eyes on him, and an eyebrow rose sceptically. Eren was never one to turn down a fight, but something about this girl made his skin crawl uncomfortably. “And who the fuck are you?”

“He’s none of your business,” Mikasa replied cooly. She carefully gathered her plate and made as if to leave. “If you’ll excuse us—”

“Don’t bother,” Hitch snapped, obviously wanting to be the one to have the last word. She stood up with Marlow in tow. “Thank you for the _lovely_ lunch. We should do this again one day.” She smiled tersely at each of them in turn, and then strode off with her tray, where her usual table accepted her back with congratulatory snickers. Marlow ‘accidentally’ bumped into Marco’s wheelchair as he passed, jarring him painfully.

Eren watched them leave with something akin to disbelief.

A soft sound from the table brought his attention back to Marco, who was angrily rubbing away a tear, cheeks red and lip trembling. Jean looked caught between furious and stricken.

“I’m so sorry, Jean,” Marco blurted out, covering his mouth with his hand. “If I… if I’d never come to Trost, you wouldn’t have to deal with—”

“Stop it, oh my god, no,” Jean seethed, drowning out his boyfriend’s voice. His hands clenched in frustration. “Don’t you dare apologize for that. She’s a fucking bitch, she gets off on playing people like this. You think I can’t stand a little name-calling? Honestly, I’ve been friends with Jaeger since freshman year.” That evoked a watery smile out of Marco.

Armin sighed on Eren’s left, but for once he seemed lost for words. Eren struggled internally for a minute, before he just couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself anymore.

“She had… no right to say such things to you!” he finally burst out. Marco stared back at him, looking half-alarmed.

There was a beat of silence.

“Oh, and _you_ do?” It was Armin who spoke, eyes almost hostile. Eren recoiled from the look in his best friend’s eye.

“What?” He shook his head. He didn’t want to make this about himself when Marco and Jean had been the ones hurt the most, but he couldn’t just _not_ defend himself. “I’m nothing like her! When have I ever spoken about Marco like that?” Armin held his gaze for a minute and then deflated, like someone had punched a hole through his hot air balloon. He looked suddenly deeply tired.

“I know you haven’t. Just… never mind. I’m sorry.”

Eren frowned, glanced back at Marco, then at his unappetizing plate of food. The difference between him and people like Hitch was that Hitch had power she could blatantly flaunt over people, and Eren was just… trying to get his friends to see things the way he did, for their own good really. Moral high ground, if anything. The conviction he usually felt at this thought was lost, however, as he stared at Marco’s slow-drying tears. Did he really have any more of a right than Hitch to tell people what was acceptable or not? To tell them how they should live their lives?

“Let’s just finish our lunch and get out of here,” Mikasa said quietly into the awkward atmosphere, and they took her suggestion readily without complaint.

 

 

 

It was only until lunch time the following day that Eren even saw Levi again. He supposed it was quite easy to avoid someone for nearly a week if the other person was attempting the exact same thing. He was heading towards the courtyard with Armin when he heard Hanji’s excited voice preceding her.

“And I can’t believe they’re already publishing something like that, it’s such a wonderful new discovery! Everything we thought we knew—”

“Frankly, I don’t give a shit,” came Levi’s terse reply. It sounded like he had even less patience for Hanji’s blathering than usual. Eren shrunk against Armin’s side and tried in vain to see through the mass of swarming students so he wouldn’t accidentally bump into them.

“But Levi, aren’t you the slightest bit excited?”

Eren didn’t catch the retort, but judging by Hanji’s indignant tone of voice – “What’s got such a big stick up your ass?” – it hadn’t been something particularly pleasant.

They were too close now to escape, so Eren had no choice but to duck his head and pretend he didn’t exist. Someone’s bag hit him in the small of his back from behind and he was dislodged from the lee of Armin’s comforting presence, pushed directly into the way of the duo. Levi’s eyes met his, cold and apathetic like the first time Eren had seen him in the first GSA meeting. He hadn’t realized how Levi’s gaze had softened towards him over the last few months until his walls were all shuttered again.

Hanji followed Levi’s stare, and she beamed immediately at the boy. “Eren! You want to come to lunch with us?”

Eren froze, trying to decipher Hanji’s ulterior intent. Surely she must know about his and Levi’s falling out; even _Petra_ , as shallow as her link to Levi seemed to be, had known. The wave of students, displeased with the interruption of the hallway’s usual flow, pushed him closer against his will, and he had to fight to stay grounded. He couldn’t hold Levi’s gaze any longer.

“Uh… no. I’m good.”

Hanji’s eyes flickered dangerously behind her glasses. “You’re both idiots is what you are.” She snapped her fingers in his face, sighing in disappointment when he flinched. “Toodaloo, Eren.” She slung an arm over Levi’s shoulders and let them be washed away by the crowd. Levi’s black trench coat brushed against his arm as he passed, and Eren nearly fell over on wobbly legs.

Armin, who had watched the scene unfold with calm blue eyes, tutted at him sympathetically. “Don’t make that hangdog face, Eren, he was a bit of an ass anyway. It’s not like you’re losing much.”

Eren swore under his breath. “I’m friends with Jean, and he’s more of an ass than Levi ever will be.” Weak argument, but Eren wasn’t about to let Levi be badmouthed by his best friend. “You don’t even _know_ him.”

“No,” Armin conceded thoughtfully. “But neither do you, really.”

Something heavy settled in Eren’s stomach and he dropped hazy eyes to the floor. Levi had said the same thing himself, so maybe there was some truth to it after all.

 

 

 

Eren sat cross-legged under the covers that night, staring blankly at his laptop with the overhead lamps already off. The blue light from the screen illuminated his room, casting odd shadows and creating grotesque shapes out of perfectly benign piles of dirty laundry.

He pulled his laptop closer to his chest and rubbed his eyes, which were prickling uncomfortably following several sleepless nights. This whole situation with Levi was bothering him far more than it should. Eren had lost friends before… Well, to be fair he’d never really _had_ friends aside from Armin and Mikasa until he’d moved to Trost.  

But Levi had not been a friend the same way those two were to him, or even Jean, or people like Sasha and Connie. They’d been unwillingly coerced into each other’s lives and somehow clicked against all odds.

He wasn’t sure what he’d have called their relationship.

Impulsively, he picked up his phone from where it lay charging on his table.

**You** 00: 46, Fri **> > **_you coming tomorrow?_

He held the phone in his palm and chewed his lip. He didn’t really expect Levi to reply but… it was worth a shot, right?

_Why are you so obsessed with him?_ Eren found himself wondering, staring pathetically at his silent phone. All he’d done was back himself into a corner, searching for the approval of someone when he’d done nothing to deserve it. _He doesn’t care, he never cared._ This is what his mother had always warned him about.

(But Levi made him laugh, and there was no greater reward than seeing Levi’s reserved smile at something Eren had said.)

Humming to himself, Eren scrolled aimlessly through his Facebook feed, not consciously registering any of the photos he saw. It was already past one am, but he felt far too high-strung to sleep. Besides, maybe Levi would write back.

His mind wandered to the conversations he’d had over the past few days. Eren frowned, his pointer hovering over the new tab button. When at a lack for anything else to do, some intimacy with his body could always be appreciated, right? In any case, it had been far too long since he’d had the time or the energy for that. Generally he was exhausted after texting Levi till all hours of the night, and with Mikasa sharing his bathroom he was never allowed to take long, satisfying showers.

Connie had, in a typical display of drunken Connie-like inappropriateness, sent him a subscription to a porn site last year that Eren had never really made use of. He left the warm cocoon of his blankets to make sure the door was locked, feeling a thrill of embarrassment and anticipation. Yeah, it had been far too long.

He clicked on a promising link and slipped on his earphones, blinking idly at the screen as he waited for the characters to get to the good part. The man was tall and fair-haired, with a chiseled face and broad shoulders, corded with muscles which he shamelessly flexed. Eren hesitated; the actor reminded him uncomfortably of Erwin, and the last thing he wanted on his mind before jerking off was that asshole. He closed the clip and opened another one.

The male actor here was more refined looking, with fine dark hair and green eyes that Eren found more aesthetically pleasing. He focused on the girl in the video: long flaxen hair and wide eyes, strong curves, and large breasts that bounced when she prowled seductively across the room…

He pulled the elastic of his boxers down and slipped a hand around himself, wincing at the drag. He licked his palm and tried again, with more success. The actors were both naked at this point, and Eren sighed breathily, his eyes roving over planes of smooth muscles, toned limbs, (and pert breasts, don’t forget the breasts!).

Eren tried to clear his mind and focus on the sensations, careful not to make too much noise, but the initial thrill began to fade after a few minutes. He tightened his grip impatiently but the frustration leaked through and his body prickled uncomfortably. He tried just closing his eyes, letting the digitalized moans and soft squelching sounds wash over him, but the woman’s high pitched keens only aggravated Eren further. After another minute of trying to will his wilting erection to full mast, he gave up entirely.

What a pitiful excuse of a man he was, he thought bitterly to himself, ripping out his earphones and readjusting his clothes. He just wanted one moment to relax, one moment to take his mind off his troubles, but the universe couldn’t allow him even that small pleasure. Whatever, two summers of Bible school had taught him that pornography and masturbation were wicked perversions that breed nothing but evil. Maybe that was all correct after all.

Irritated with himself and the world in general, Eren snapped his laptop shut and shoved it onto his desk, (then opened it again, closed the tab and deleted his browser history, because he wouldn’t put it past his mother to go snooping. And he was dead three times over if she ever found such sinful material on it.)

Fuck, well, what was there to do now? He was now even less inclined to sleep than he’d been before, half-horny and not able to do anything about it, and it was nearly two in the morning. All his friends were most definitely in bed by now because they were normal people who valued sleep.

Except one, probably. Eren was quite positive Levi _never_ slept: it was always Eren passing out on Levi when they texted through the night, never the other way around. And the permanent smoky shadows under his eyes did seem to validate that theory. However, Levi obviously wasn’t an option right now.

Nevertheless, Eren reached for his phone anyway and checked his latest message history with faint hope that maybe he’d just missed the vibration of a new message while he'd been too busy failing to jerk off. No reply. Who was he kidding?

The good news was that maybe he would be able to regain a normal sleeping pattern in the future, without someone keeping him up all night.

So engrossed was he in staring blankly down at his phone and wallowing in self-pity, that he definitely did not expect to hear a faint but tired sounding _“Hello?”_ from the speakers of his phone.

He squeaked in panic, staring at the screen in shock and realized that he must have accidentally called Levi: the implication made him flail in confusion and his phone went pitching off the side of the bed, landing on the floor with a frighteningly loud clatter. He dove for the device and clutched it against his pounding chest for a long moment, holding his breath to listen if his mother or Mikasa would come looking for the source of all the noise.

When all he could hear was the rushing weight of silence and his own heartbeat, he breathed a sigh of relief and glanced back at his phone. Fuck, the call was still on.

“Uh… Levi?” His stomach lurched uncomfortably, and he pulled his knees tight against his chest.

The silence felt, this time, like the presence of another person. _“… Do I even want to know what just happened?”_

Eren flushed in embarrassment, though there was no one to see. “Shut up, you just surprised me and I dropped my phone on the floor.” He lowered his voice, remembering he wasn’t alone in the house. “I uh… hadn’t meant to call you.”

_“You hadn’t meant to call me?”_ Levi repeated hazily, still sounding drowsy. ‘No,’ Eren thought ironically, ‘I was just staring at my text and hoping you would reply when I accidently hit the call button.’ Yeah, that would go over really well.

He thought about coming up with some kind of excuse, but felt too emotionally drained in this moment. “I can… You can hang up if you want… I know you don’t want to, I mean… Shit. I’m sorry.”

_“Well, we’re here now.”_

Eren’s heart thumped. That definitely wasn’t a dismissal, even though Eren had clearly given him a way out. His fingers tightened in the covers, and he didn’t know what to say.

_“What are you doing up this late anyway?”_ Levi asked, saving him from having to think of a reply, and the voice reverberated so deep in Eren’s ear, almost like things were back to normal. But Eren knew he wasn’t off the hook. Not yet. He’d garner no favors from Levi by avoiding the obvious.

“Couldn’t sleep. And I… I just wanted to apologize again, alright? For last weekend. I’m… well, I shouldn’t have said those things, I’ve had a week to regret it.”

Levi snorted, but was otherwise silent.

“Are you still mad?” The boy bit his lip, tugging gently at the key hung around his neck.

Levi heaved a sigh, and Eren thought for a moment he could feel that breath warming the sensitive skin of his ear. He shivered instinctively.

_“You make things so complicated, Eren,”_ Levi replied cryptically, though there was a touch of humor in his voice. “ _It’s… time I apologize too, though.”_ Now, Levi sounded like he was sucking on a lemon, and Eren knew it wasn’t in his nature to apologize so readily. _“I can’t forgive you the words you said, and I still stand by what I told you about taking a critical eye to your behavior because that’s just not acceptable… but I know also your intent in that moment was not to hurt.”_

“I’m just a brat who can’t keep his mouth shut,” Eren agreed with a wry smile, and Levi huffed.

_“Yes you’re a brat, but I was angry at a lot of things that night and I took it out on you when you didn’t – entirely – deserve it.”_ He was quiet for a moment, sincere. Eren wondered if his anger had had to do with Erwin. _“I probably could have been a little more diplomatic.”_

Eren’s throat felt dry, and he stared into the dark corners of his room. “I think I needed to hear it like that, though.”

When there came no reply, Eren shuffled around into a more comfortable position, pulling the covers up to his chin and tucking his phone between his cheek and his pillow. He wished he could see Levi’s face right now. He wondered what the other boy was thinking.

“So, like, are we good now?” he spoke into the silence, wondering if the line had cut out, and hating the way his voice came out sounding so tremulous and weak.

Levi chuckled faintly. _“Good enough to work through this. Are you home alone?”_

Used to Levi’s frequent and often perplexing subject changes, Eren didn’t bat an eye. “No, my mom’s downstairs, and Mikasa across the hall. So I gotta be quiet.” Levi hummed. “And you?” Eren couldn’t help but ask. He knew next to nothing about Levi’s living situation, and not for lack of trying.

_“Just me and my cat_.” Eren could imagine Levi curled up over his covers, phone in hand, the cat that covered all his black sweaters in white hairs purring against his side. He could hear Levi’s soft breaths against the receiver, the rustling of sheets.

_“Eren, the last time we— You told me once there was something bothering you, something you hadn’t shared with anyone aside from your best friends,”_ Levi probed eventually, his tone impossible to read.

Eren closed his eyes, rolling onto his back. Of course Levi would remember. He’d been expecting too much not to have his careless statements come back to bite him, to have to dredge all this history up again.

“I probably did,” he evaded.  

_“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to share. But maybe you could tell me a bit about your family. What’s your mother like?”_

Levi sounded weirdly like a therapist, but it was a comforting feeling. He’d never really have considered Levi as comforting before. But it was half-past two am and his mind was woozy, where Levi was a firm and strong presence on the other end of the phone line. He thought, maybe this is what trust felt like.

“Well… Her name is Carla, my grandparents were Turkish immigrants to Germany but she doesn’t talk about that much.” He shrugged. “She married my father Grisha Jaeger before we moved to the States: he was… well I don’t know much about him at all, really, he never talked about himself. He’s the one who gave me this damn useless key. Anyway, I’m her only biological son and Mikasa is my uh, adopted sister.”

_“Japanese?”_

“Japanese-American.”

‘Please don’t ask about Mikasa,’ Eren pleaded silently. Perhaps Levi understood something in Eren’s tone of voice, because all he said was, _“That’s quite multi-cultural.”_

“I suppose, but I’ve only been to Germany once since I was born, so it hardly feels like it’s a part of me.” All he’d ever really known was Shiganshina and Trost. How he wished he could travel one day and see more of the world, but his mother and Mikasa liked it just fine where they were, it seemed. Besides, they didn’t exactly have the income or the funds for it anymore. Not since Grisha left.

“My dad was a scientist, you know?” Eren added slowly. “Cancer research. It... it probably felt like a shitty twist of fate when my mother was diagnosed with acute leukemia when I was five. At her age and the development stage of the disease, the doctors predicted she’d only have about a few years left; even my dad had little hope.” He sighed. “But that’s around the time she turned to God. She’d been raised Protestant -- yeah, there _is_ a Christian population in Turkey -- and she’d always had faith, but I guess knowing you’re going to die soon puts life in a different perspective. She changed, I guess. Her religion became her everything. But a year passed, and then another… And she’s still here, somehow.”

Eren left out some parts, like the hours of grueling chemotherapy, the flimsy images his child-brain retained of his mother’s worn, greyed face, the changes he’d noticed in his household but hadn’t understood until much later. He supposed he was lucky to not remember a good portion of that time, when there had been so much suffering. He only truly remembered when things had started going better, that time there was life again in his father’s eye when Carla came back from a routine check-up, the atmosphere of hope in the house that only grew stronger the more validation they had that her body was successfully fighting off the cancer, even against all odds.

_“It does seem like a bit of a miracle.”_ Eren jumped; he’d almost forgotten he was talking to Levi at all.

“Maybe it is. Maybe she is truly blessed, like she believes she is. Ever since then she’s turned her entire being to her faith, in thankfulness for having survived, and that’s entirely understandable. But my dad um…” He sighed. “That didn’t go over so well with him. They loved each other, but they fought a lot. About me and Mikasa, mostly.”

_“And now?”_

“He doesn’t live with us anymore,” was all Eren elected to say on the matter.

He leaned back into his pillows, pulling his covers up to his chin again and snuggling into their warmth. How had he gone from trying to have a wank to pouring out his life story over the phone in one night? He guessed that since it was some ungodly hour of the morning, conversations were bound to get weird and personal.

“You know…” He started, but then faltered.

_“What is it, brat?”_

“It’s not really relevant.”

_“When was the last time you talked about all this shit with someone?”_ Levi shot back with a sudden burst of fire, though the way he phrased it didn’t sound like a question. _“Nothing is relevant nor is it irrelevant when there’s no logical flow to the conversation. You might feel better just letting it out.”_

Levi _was_ a good listener. He’d never even said the usual ‘sorry’ about Eren’s family situation: there was no pity in his voice, just grim acceptance. Eren hated it when people pitied him. He’d moved on, because what else was there to do, and people would still look at him like he was a broken thing that needed to be fixed. That’s why he never really told people much.

Well, time to open Pandora’s Box.

“My mom’s always been really supportive of me,” he began. “Even when I told her I wasn’t sure I believed in God, she accepted that after a while. She said that would come in time. But some things were… are… so ingrained in…” He frowned, not sure how to continue. “She still insisted on Mikasa and I going to Sunday service, and she influenced our daily lives: private prayer, studying scripture, that kind of stuff. I guess that rubbed my dad the wrong way… I don’t even know how he identified religiously. Especially because it was the cancer that triggered this...”

_“Maybe he felt like she wasn’t giving enough credit to the scientific developments that helped her survive the cancer?”_

“Probably. Things kind of escalated and…” He pursed his lips, fighting valiantly against the ingrained instinct that told him not to talk about this, not now, not ever. “There was this b-boy in my class in fifth or… sixth grade. His name was Thomas, and he was the kind of kid everyone liked; funny and smart and popular even though he had this fucked up hair and looked like a total dork. Pretty much the exact opposite of me in those days,” Eren laughed bitterly. “He had no reason to, but he’d always help me out with work when Armin was busy, and cheer me up when I wasn’t having a good day. He was pretty much my only other friend.”

_“So what happened to him?”_ Levi sounded apprehensive.

“I invited him to my house one weekend. We were playing on my old Xbox, and he asked me if I liked anyone in the class.” Eren remembered Thomas’ hushed voice and flushed cheeks as he’d turned to him, losing track of his character on screen. Eren hadn’t understood in that moment why Thomas would find Eren’s answer more important than beating the boss level. “I told him I’d never liked any of the girls.” Eren huffed a laugh, saying, “God, I almost forgot this, I haven’t thought about it in so long. He told me you couldn’t get weird lip diseases from boys like you could from girls – I’m assuming he meant herpes – so it was okay to kiss them. He was such an idiot.” Eren touched his lips subconsciously, feelings the shame and embarrassment from the memory heat his cheeks and stutter his heart.

Levi made a stifled noise on the other end of the line that Eren couldn’t interpret.

“Well, t-that went down just like you’d expect,” he continued in a lower tone of voice. “Except my mother walked in right then to bring us some snacks, and she saw everything.”

_“Shit.”_ Levi sucked in a shocked breath. _“That’s… shit.”_

“Yeah.”

_“So that’s when the whole brainwashing started?”_ His voice hardened in disapproval as he spoke. _“Because of one innocent kiss that you didn’t even have control over?”_

“No,” Eren snapped, rising instinctively to his mother’s defense. “It’s not like that. I mean, she was horrified, yeah. And she forbade me from ever associating with Thomas again, but she just wanted to protect me. She enrolled Mikasa and me in a small Christian private school in Shiganshina. It was fine, for the most part. I just really missed Armin. But the biggest problem was my dad.”

Levi snorted in disbelief. _“He was more homophobic than your mother?”_

 “The opposite.” Eren hummed sullenly. “I think… that was the last straw for him. He couldn’t agree with how my mother was handling the situation. That’s when he left us.” Eren bit his lip so hard he nearly drew blood. “He’s… he’s a fucking…” His voice disintegrated into a sound of frustration. “If he _really_ cared that much about me, then he wouldn’t have run away! He’d have stayed to help work things out. I just… I don’t understand. Didn’t he realize what it would do to my mother? She was… completely devastated.” Eren’s voice broke half way through the sentence. “And it was all my fault.”

_“Oh, Eren.”_ Levi sounded so soft. Eren wondered, for the countless time, what Levi’s expression would reveal were he to see him face to face.

“It’s fine, I—”

_“It’s not,”_ Levi interrupted, voice rising. _“You didn’t deserve any of that shit. Not from either of your parents. If their values conflicted on so many levels, it’s not because of you that they split up. None of it is because of you, not Thomas, not your father. You shouldn’t feel like you have anything to prove to the family you have left.”_

Eren stared at his lap in the dark, not knowing what to reply.

_“If I may ask,”_ Levi continued cautiously. _“Your interest in girls then, when did it come?”_

The boy twisted his fingers in his sheet, swallowing against the dryness in his throat. He didn’t really know how to answer that either. Recounting facts of the past was a much easier feat than picking apart that which was intangible and putting it into words, especially when he’d always consciously avoided voicing the feelings for himself.

“Well…” he breathed quietly. “Never, really.”

Levi seemed to have stilled on the other end of the line; Eren could not even hear him breathe anymore.

There was an agonizing beat of silence, and then, _“I see.”_

Eren rubbed at his eyes until he saw dark spots against the lighter darkness of his room. “I don’t intend to be the way that I am,” he said, voice turning wobbly, desperate for Levi to understand. “I don’t—”

_“Wait, wait, what do you mean?_ ” Levi cut him off quickly. “ _That you’re asexual, or that you’ve been a raging closeted homo this entire time?”_

“ _No!_ Not, neither—!” Eren fought to lower his voice against the panic that bubbled up under his tongue. “I just, I don’t know, I don’t _k-know…”_   A chocked sob ripped from his throat and he buried his face in his pillow in shame. “F-fuck, I don’t want you to hear me cry,” he gasped out in a voice thick with unshed tears.

_“Eren! Don’t hang up,”_ Levi ordered, and he heard rustling like his friend was sitting up in bed in his agitation. Eren froze, biting down hard on the flesh of his thumb to stifle the tears. _“Talk to me, brat. Don’t keep this inside of you.”_

Eren covered his mouth with his hand but the words fled out anyway. “I love my mother,” he whispered. “I don’t w-want to hurt her. And I’ve always trusted her, believed her judgment even if I didn’t _believe._ But I just don’t know any more. I don’t know anything!” He grabbed at his pillow in a sudden fit of fury. “I talked— I talked with Jean the other day, about how he knew he was gay but it d-didn’t help one bit. Why is it so easy for everyone else? Why do they—?” He bit his lip.

_“I know. It’s not easy. Some fortunate fuckers get luck of the draw, a family that supports them.”_

But Eren wasn’t really listening. “I feel so filthy. I can’t believe I’m sitting here questioning something that should be obvious… it makes me sick! You saw me, at the club…” He took in a shuddering breath. "I just don't know what to do anymore," he confessed in a small voice.

Levi shushed him gently, or as gently as Levi was able to. _“Eren, listen to me. You’re a beautiful person, alright? And I know me telling you this isn’t going to change much, but I hope one day you can see that too. You are not only what you perceive yourself to be.”_

He paused, and it felt like Levi was steeling himself, tone tightening. _“Ah… I haven’t spoken about this ever, but do you know why I left my family when I was fifteen?”_ Eren started, trying to remember if Levi had ever even told him that. He didn’t get a chance to reply before Levi was ploughing on, voice clipped like he was punching the sentences out against his will. _“I barely knew my mother, and my uncle and I have never really gotten along. There are quite a few valid reasons for that, but part of it was my liking cock. When I told him that once, as the naïve child that I was, he flew into a rage and threw a beer bottle at me. There’s a scar on my forehead from the glass. I’m not saying this to make you feel like some people have it worse than you. I’m only saying I know a bit more than most about what you’re going through right now.”_

Eren pressed the phone tightly against his ear, the tears dying in his throat so he wouldn’t miss a word of Levi’s smooth voice.

_“I’m not suggesting you leave home either, of course,”_ Levi added quickly. _“Anyone with half a brain can see how much your family loves each other. But one day you’re going to have to realize that sometimes your opinions and values differ from those of your parents and relatives. Politically, socially, financially… and especially when it comes to defining aspects of your personal identity, you can’t let them stand in your way of discovering yourself. I think it’s time you tried exploring these things.”_ He chuckled quietly. _“Eren, I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but you’ve built these walls around yourself. Don’t you want to see the world outside?”_

Eren blinked, staring blankly out his bedroom window into the bleary night sky. He thought about how comfortable Jean had looked, admitting himself. How proud all his friends were of their own skins, and of their partners. Wouldn’t it be nice to finally understand, to let himself wonder and think and open himself without shutting down the thoughts like he’d been taught, so that maybe one day he could be proud too?

Yes, Levi was right. Eren was scared. He was fucking terrified of what lay beyond the walls, so to speak. But then again, Eren had never allowed himself to be a coward either.

And he sure as hell wasn’t about to start now.

_“Oi, brat,”_ Levi snapped in his ear. _“You better not have fallen asleep on me after I went to the trouble of baring my soul and all that sappy shit.”_

Eren smiled softly. He knew his labored breathing betrayed his presence anyway, and Levi’s harsh tone had a subtle warmth to it that took away the sting.

“I’m still here,” he replied anyway. A defensive joke was Levi’s way of dealing with tension, he figured. But for the first time in a very long time, Eren felt about as far from tense as he could imagine. “Thank you,” he breathed quietly, pleased to find that his tears had stopped spilling down his cheeks. “I haven’t really… really… You know? Talked…” He pinched his nose. “I’m sorry. I’m a complete mess.”

Levi snorted, though not unkindly. _“Mm yeah, bit of an understatement.”_ Eren frowned indignantly, but Levi must have known him well enough to anticipate his reaction because Eren heard a short chuckle. _“It’s alright. Sometimes this is the only way to move past. Bottling things up inside and letting them fester just makes you a miserable little shit, until one day the dam breaks and you’ve suddenly got chronic feels-diarrhea.”_

Eren choked on a startled laugh. “What the fuck, Levi.”

_“Do you trust me?”_ the other asked him, suddenly sobering.

Eren didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” He wouldn’t have let Levi wheedle this entire conversation out of him if he didn’t.

_“Good. Then you have nothing to be ashamed of.”_ There was a moment of contemplative silence, then; _“I’m proud of you.”_

Eren felt a glowing sensation bud in his chest, struggling to escape and flood his body with warmth, but he curled up in a ball to keep it close and protected, cracking a shaky grin instead. “God, now you sound like my mother.”

_“Alright then; I’m proud of you even though you’re an insufferable little shit and half the time I want to punch your snooty little nose in through your face. Better?”_

“Already did that once, you won’t get away with it that easily again,” Eren tried to snark, but his voice was wobbly and the effect was probably ruined. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

Levi sighed. _“Go to sleep now, you fuck. I can hear the goddamn birds singing good morning outside my window and I don’t even want to acknowledge what time it is. If I commit homicide tomorrow on whoever first blocks my path to the coffee machine, remember that it’s your fault.”_

“Duly noted.”

_“Homicide, Eren. I’m not joking.”_ Eren laughed and hung up the phone, collapsing backwards into his nest of pillows. He didn’t even get the chance to think a single worrisome thought before a wave of exhaustion washed over him, rocking him into blissful oblivion with the cell phone still pressed up against his ear.

 

 

Eren’s mother found him like that two hours later, his alarm ringing unheeded, and muttered fondly under her breath about how modern technology was ruining her children’s sleep patterns. She pulled the duvet up to his chin, and let him sleep another fifteen minutes.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats, you made it through this big ass heavy thing :'( Next chapter will be a little different, but there are some loose ends (like Mikasa and Armin) that need to be tied up before part one ends, and Eren is too unreliable a narrator. Who else wants to know what Levi thinks of all this? ;)
> 
> Special thanks to [humanitys strongest otp](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiyuu_sama/pseuds/humanitys%20strongest%20otp) and [ALostFox](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ALostFox/pseuds/ALostFox) for inspiring the scene with Hitch and Marlow.
> 
> Which reminds me, if you guys have any suggestions for scenes/themes/character dynamics you’d like to see addressed in this fic, feel free to mention them. I have a pretty strict plot-plan I’m following, but this fic is as much for you as it is for me (and there’s a lot more coming). Feedback is appreciated. I hope this lived up to your expectations. ♡

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://robin-red-r.tumblr.com/) if you want to friend. 
> 
> I hope to update once a week whenever possible. All comments and support are appreciated ♥.


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